


Blues Are To Sing And Swallow

by LotusRox



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: (And his coping mechanisms suck just as much.), (But he's SO BAD at feelings. SO BAD.), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, First Meeting, Graves and Credence heal each other, Graves-centric, Illustrated, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Not Canon Compliant - Movie 2: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Original Percival Graves, Recovery, Slow Burn, The second movie doesn't exist as far as this fic is concerned, Workaholic Original Percival Graves, like glacial slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-05-05 15:52:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14622000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LotusRox/pseuds/LotusRox
Summary: Just seeing the handcuffs on Credence draws a growl out of Graves. It gets under Tina's skin.Nobody had noticed. Director Graves didn’t do close relationships, and Grindelwald had avoided, demoted, sent away anyone who might have.Locked in, powerless, humiliated..."Seraphina will listen", he mutters between his teeth. "I'm going to take care of this."----It's late December, 1926, and Graves' first look at Credence Barebone takes place at the basement cells of the Woolworth Building. Stern and damaged and a life-long loner... Nobody is more surprised than himself when he decides to take the boy under his wing.Artwork byScribacchina





	1. (The Wrongness Of) White Noise

**Author's Note:**

> This is a JOINT birthday gift for the glorious, glorious ([Elsie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/na_shao)). BABY YOU'RE THE BESTEST AND KINDEST AND MOST TALENTED AND WE ALL ADORE YOU ♥ ♥ ♥ What a better occasion than this, then, for a collab? ;3 [Juls](jujulsarts.tumblr.com), in her infinite coolness, went all HEY WHY DON'T WE DO THIS TOGETHER, and I was all too happy to accept, only to find out she planned one (1) illustration _per chapter_. I'm grateful AF!
> 
> Now, about the fic: This is a (NOW NON-CANON COMPLIANT, THANKS JOANNE) Gradence fic I started writing for Elsie sometime in February, 2017, that was meant to be the background story for one of our RPs. It grew, it deviated from the plot we played together, and it's now going to be a multichapter. SURPRISE! ;3
> 
> The fic will update every Thursday, because it's basically complete at 6/8 chapters. Hope y'all enjoy the ride.

"The hell is MACUSA doing!", Graves all but _snarls_ , throwing the double doors open as he goes down the hallway leading to the holding cells in the basement, mood getting worse by the minute.

 

Tina doesn't shiver at his tone, her efforts currently focused on keeping pace with the long, hurried strides of the man. It's a close one - but this is a mission. If her boss isn’t keeping silent out of sheer indignation…

 

"That boy should be in the hospital. Not locked down like some sort of goddamn _beast_ with the rest of the garbage!"

 

Graves never, ever raises his voice outside of a battlefield, where confusion and danger makes it necessary to lead. This is a fact his Aurors know. 

 

It has Tina wondering about the similitudes.

 

“Right behind you, sir”, she mutters, and keeps her hand close to her holster. Her calm may be shaky, but her determination is anything but  - She won’t be the one to criticize Graves, and if every lock keeps replying, unfailing, at the thrum of his magic… then it’s not as if anyone would _dare_ to throw him out of the Woolworth Building.

 

There had been a reason she had chosen to inform the Director what had happened to Credence Barebone while he was still supposed to be in the hospital himself. The healers hadn't deemed Graves fit to go just yet.

 

Her status as a hero of the Subway Incident, as the press had taken to call it, hadn't really given her much leverage when it came to Credence's destiny.

 

Credence Barebone had been found amidst the ruins of the New Salem's church, naked and almost done for by hypothermia and blood loss; right when a team of Aurors had been there sweeping the place for further data. He had been dragged away in chains, and put into a secure cell so warded it might as well have been indestructible. A number of healers do visit to keep him alive and check on his status, he gets fed and medically assisted with a certain degree of frequency. But he is, by all means, a prisoner. MACUSA still hasn't decided what to do with him, the debate raging on fierce, and veering closer towards a swift execution every day.

 

Time had gotten too close to running out. Tina hadn't been about to stand for it. 

 

Maybe Director Graves is still recovering himself, physically at least, but her mentor had been the only one she could trust to help. And so, she had Apparated at the Margaret Jones Hospital for Magical Injuries that morning, with a dossier thicker than an Academy textbook for Graves to pour over.

 

In all honesty, it hadn't been necessary for him to read all of it before indignation at the _goddamned inefficiency of everyone involved_ reached peak levels. And then, she had told him of the Barebone boy's destiny.

 

Graves isn't alright. She knows this. He would have thought things through better had he been his old self, would have analyzed the situation and devised a plan. His actual reaction had been so completely unexpected to her - Still limping and wandless, with his left arm in a sling, Graves had looked _livid_ when he asked her to Apparate them out of the room and inside the Woolworth Building, as soon as it was safely past visiting hours.

 

Wide-eyed, she wouldn’t have dared to disobey him. Coming back to sneak him out, she had found him fully dressed and with his rage intact.

 

Is it the unfairness of the situation? Is the terrible management of it by his own people what is setting him off, the mistreatment of a victim the last straw after they _fucking failed_ to notice Graves hadn't been Graves for two entire months?

 

Is it misplaced guilt?

 

(Is it, heavens forbid, _kinship_?)

 

They reach Credence's holding cell. The two-way mirror in the wall shows him awake, sitting on the bed. Everything inside is white, from the floors to the sheets to his scrubs. His skin is pale and sallow, pure paper with dashes of dark colors - the black of his hair and the faint red of his lips, green and purple and the bright pink of scar tissue mottling what his scarce clothing leaves visible.

 

The buzz of the wards can’t be actually heard. But it’s powerful enough she feels it prickling at the base of her spine, a phonograph needle grooving through a silent vinyl.

  
They see him frown, turn towards the mirror. And Credence, she’s sure, she's  _positive_ he can't see them, but for a moment, Tina could swear he's aware of their presence anyway. By her side Graves stands still - taking in the damage, the bruises littering that pale body. Deliverance knew everyone in Magical Security with enough of a clearance had paraded through her unconscious boss’ hospital room to do the same -  Assessing each and every visible mark two months of torture and isolation inside his own damn closet left on him, horrified. An entire department at MACUSA was, _is_ soaked in guilt they don’t know what to do about.

 

And the scars left _in_ him...

  
Just seeing the handcuffs on Credence draws a growl out of Graves. It becomes static under her skin.

 

"Seraphina _will_ listen", he mutters between his teeth. "I'm going to take care of this."

 

Nobody had noticed. Director Graves didn’t do close relationships, and Grindelwald had avoided, demoted, sent away anyone who might have.

 

_Locked in, powerless, humiliated..._

 

"You always do, Director”, she says softly.

 

He breathes in and out, almost whirring. There’s a pause, and.

 

"I'm coming back here tomorrow morning", Graves exhales, not quite unexpectedly. Much calmer, too. "Make sure to debrief the kid, Goldstein. And to clear the misunderstanding. The last thing I want is him thinking I'm that son of a bitch coming back to get him."

 

How many people had already mistaken one for another.

  
  
Whichever of the possible reasons is making Graves bristle this badly-- Instinct is instinct. She never stopped being an Auror, manipulation is an ugly word, and not at all what her intent had been. She isn't sure she knows this Graves - so impulsive, emotional in ways she had never seen. Tina would've never used the word _unstable_ to describe the Director before. But together they can save Credence, and that is all she had ever wanted.

 

Graves clenches his jaw and turns to walk away, back straight. His perfect picture of composure is ruined by his uneven steps, the almost physical strumming of his resolve.  _So much to do._

 

The exact consequences of it, well. They'd have to play them by ear.

 

 

 

\------------

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please please do comment, tell us what you liked (or not), or otherwise come yell at me at [my Tumblr.](http://fractalspaces.tumblr.com) \- I can't promo [Juls' art blog](https://jujulsarts.tumblr.com/) enough, tho', so no yelling for her ;D


	2. Dissonance in A(M), Tuning Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _‘I’m not him’,_ he wants to scream at everyone crossing his path and bowing his head in silence, or plain respectfully avoiding him. May the damage written all over him be a memo. A report. _‘I’m not him, damn it all, say something.’_
> 
> \----
> 
> Graves and Credence meet face to face for the first time.

Graves _loathes_ the cane the healers insisted on inflicting upon him before they allowed him outside.

 

His little escapade and power-walking through MACUSA's lower levels the previous night had opened the dark wound of his thigh again, and they had threatened him with a future of permanent limping if he didn't use the accursed thing. Entering the Woolworth Building, though, he’s almost grateful for it.

 

Grateful for the cane and his ruined left arm in a sling, and the swollen new scar cutting straight from his right eyebrow to his cheekbone - Curses he had parried and blocked and _gotten,_ a _Scindere_ to the face he had barely managed to avoid, a leg he’d been lucky to keep.

 

 _‘I’m not him’,_ he wants to scream at everyone crossing his path and bowing his head in silence, or plain respectfully avoiding him. May the damage written all over him be a memo. A report. _‘I’m not him, damn it all, say something.’_

 

He’s being paranoid and he knows it, it’s likely pity instead of revulsion or fear. Needing the reminder himself makes him bristle - but he’ll take it, too.

 

His Aurors in the basement, at least, make the effort of saluting and asking how he is. One of them dares to start, the others chime in.

 

Graves doesn’t want to talk about _anything_ beyond the elegant, forced cockyness of “Alive and kicking, thank you”, and asking for reports he’s pretty sure he has no right to receive anymore, based on the apologetic vagueness of what he gets. But they do lead him to Credence’s cell down at the 101.

 

The discordance gives him whiplash. Where does he even _stand?_

 

Opening the door, going past wards thick enough to be viscous--

 

He _had_ been expecting the negative reaction, after what he had seen about Credence and Grindelwald on the dossier. Trauma had rendered the boy mute, and Seraphina, of course, had justified bringing a team of Legilimens to glean his memories off him. Goldstein had clearly been prepared to await all patient for him to read the entire thing if necessary, but fifteen pages in, Graves had closed both the folder and his eyes, and had decided to not go any further. The level of exposure _a victim_ of the dark wizard had been subjected to disgusted him on a physical level. For once, what he had was enough to have the certainty of the boy's innocence.

 

Two months. It had taken Grindelwald longer to earn the boy’s trust than to win his affection.

 

Credence takes a single look at him, and his mouth opens in a silent scream.

 

Tina hurries to hold him, contain him, but the scent of singed flesh and burnt _magic_ reaches Graves’ nose, and _he had known_ what those handcuffs were last night. Somewhere in another cell like this one, a cheating fascist is wearing the same.

 

The boy snarls not in anger now but in pain, baring his teeth, and it’s so very jarring, how raw that sound is. How contradictory, when he then goes locked into himself, paralyzed and as quiet as he can make himself on reflex. Graves sees tears running down his cheeks. He sees him choking on his own breath and on his own spit, even with Tina’s soothing hands on his thin, thin shoulders.

 

“Credence, it’s okay, it’s not him. It’s not him, I promise”, she mutters, trying for _reassuring,_ but the boy just shakes his head and drowns in air further, curling smaller into himself.

 

Debriefing or not, the shock of seeing him had apparently been too much. And Graves... Has no clue on how to deal with this. He has some training on dealing with trauma victims, every Auror has, but he was never good at it. This is clearly beyond his abilities.

 

_‘I’m not him. Say something.’_

 

He would’ve slumped if he weren’t so proud. He thinks, it was selfish from him coming here so soon.

 

_‘Say something.’_

 

He thinks, maybe it was a mistake coming _at all_.

 

But the thing is, this has nothing to do with his personal comfort. Picquery is dealing with a fallout from every side, the press calling both for her figurative blood, and for Credence's very literal death. Congress has been heatedly debating if the boy should be classified as a _person,_ instead of a being, or a beast - even the more moderates between them pressing for total Obliviation as a preventive measure.

 

Credence may be of age but Graves looks at him and sees a hurting magical _child_ , failed in every way by the same government in whose altar he had burned himself for twenty years. There were decades of abuse seared into his skin, even before Grindelwald came along to use him and crush his spirit.

 

He isn't allowing _shit_ to happen to this boy.

 

"Credence", he calls, and it's maybe the authority in his voice what makes it work, because the boy does lift his head - eyes all wide and still wracked by violent tremors. "I'm getting you out of here soon."

 

Tina nods, hugging Credence, trying to ground him. _'Go on'_ , she appears to be saying. They both know the boy had received too many empty promises to last him a lifetime, and all of them had been dripping with honey. Graves doesn’t sweeten his words. That ought to make a difference.

 

"You will be safe. You will be cared for", and the last part is hard to say but he manages anyway-- "I know you have no reason to believe this face. But I'm going to see to it. And you’ll have it proven through fact.”

 

As if finally tuning in, Credence stares and repeats his last three words with red, bitten lips. Still mute. And Graves knows he understands, but doesn’t trust him, when his entire body language twists into something bitter once again.

 

This goddamned morning.

 

It’s barely past 10AM and this visit has already stretched for far too long. There’s no further comment to make, he's already drained enough it’s only stubbornness keeping him upright. Like there’s no blood left inside his veins. Like there’s no magic, just as well.

 

He needs to go back to the hospital so the healers can keep fussing about him, keep him under chain and lock. Graves is pretty sure it’s not their _plan_ to force him to relive his captivity, but the entire battery of potions he’s being given isn’t helping him feel more normal.

 

Mercy Lewis, are they insistent they need him to be _calmer._

 

With a last look to Tina, and another nod, he turns around and leaves. The cane he’s been forced to hold on his right hand doesn’t call back to him like his wand did - it’s shameful at its worst, and at its best more of a baton than an extension of himself. His long, dark coat hangs from his shoulders. But he isn’t powerless here. Yet.

 

Getting rid of those fucking cuffs will his first priority.

 

\------------

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woops. SO IT STARTS. TBH, I'm pretty excited about this characterization for our Mr. Graves |DDD Just so you know, the working title for this fic used to be "The 'Graves Is Not Ok' Show", but I promise he's going to get better! Not quite soon, but he will. And so will Credence :3  
>  
> 
> \----  
>  
> 
> Please please do comment, tell us what you liked (or not), or otherwise come yell at me at [my Tumblr.](http://fractalspaces.tumblr.com) \- I can't promo [Juls' art blog](https://jujulsarts.tumblr.com/) enough, tho', so no yelling for her ;D


	3. Mouvement Introduct(if)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s lucky Credence isn’t flinching or hiding like the last time. It’s not so lucky, Graves thinks, that he still appears to be dissociating. This tranquility of his as he slowly lowers his gaze, taking in the shiny black of his brogues as if it fascinated him, isn’t only eerie - it means there won’t be much to take away from this meeting as well.
> 
>  
> 
> “Hello, Mr. Graves”, he says. His voice is odd, and raspy. As if he had lost mastery of it.
> 
> \----
> 
> He's seen the boy for the first time, there's been a pretty awful first meeting. Time for a first actual talk.

Sunset must be already happening up in the real world, Graves thinks. An echo of footsteps alerts him of somebody’s incoming presence before they can be seen. He straightens up his back out of habit.

 

He’s kept, more or less, a sense of how long had he been sprawled on this waiting room couch - Meant for the visitors of the detainees in lower-security levels, it had been transfigured into something  _ nicer _ by a hurried, overly solicitous Auror. The color of the weather outside had given him a preview of these miles and miles of hallway in white and grey, but the distant softness of the clouds is nowhere to be seen here. These dungeons, they’re all straight, efficient lines.

 

Someone could’ve cut up his feet there, walking over the smooth checkered floor.

 

The Aurors have been doing their best to mind what he might need - including arranging this meeting with the boy on the down low. It’s equal parts the condescension that makes his skin crawl, and the satisfying certainty there’s still loopholes he can grab onto.

 

Precious few people have the clearance to reach these cells. Even fewer are allowed in any proximity of Credence Barebone. But he hasn’t been given the pink slip yet, thank Magic. Nor suspended. Official word is, he’s  _ on leave _ , and Percival Graves never in his life has let time off get in the way of his work.

 

He gets up, and refills his coffee mug from the charmed pot Goldstein The Younger left for him hours ago. There’s spite quirking his lips when he imagines the reaction of the Healers back at Margaret Jones. For once he can’t just escape the damn hospital room as soon as he’s physically able. A week after his first attempt at breaking out, he’s been granted permission to go outside, but he has to be back there at night so they can monitor his progress, and there’s things he needs to mind - like strenuous movement, and coffee and alcohol.

 

He does know potions, but they were always so far from being his forte, as wooly-headed as he’s being kept he can barely remember the name of everything they’re still pumping into him.  _ Invigorating Draught, Blood Replenisher, Dittany,  _ the humiliating concession he’s made for Dreamless Sleep _.  _ And the Calming Draught he’ll keep spitting out as soon as the nurses turn their back. The easy peace of it is made of bad memories.

 

“Director Graves?”, and the title keeps the weird little smile on him. That’s Auror Palmer, standing at attention as soon as he’s close enough for it to be proper. “Sorry for the wait, sir.”

 

He’s so permanently tired these days, he had been close to falling asleep. With the kick of caffeine fresh upon his veins, he knows he passes inadverted.

 

“It’s all fine”, Graves dismisses him with a vague gesture of his hand. “Long day?”

 

“The department is a mess”, Palmer exhales, at the very least as exhausted as he is. The Auror doesn’t get into it further, and he knows why.

 

He takes a quick look at Credence through the two-way mirror before getting any closer to the door. The hum of the wards is almost rattling, as always, but nothing is trying to force them open. The boy lies down half-sitting, with a blanket around his shoulders, and a plump pillow supporting his back. With a gaze lost somewhere in the ceiling, his still too-pale face looks almost floating amidst the blinding white of  _ everything. _

 

“The handcuffs were taken away today”, Palmer says, and the resultant rush of pride is a balm for Graves’ soul. He nods, murmurs a thank you, gets in.

 

He hadn’t known an empty stare could be such a heavy thing, until Credence set his own on him. Silence stretches long, and just as thick. And Graves, he didn’t read that much of the dossier - but remembers enough to know  _ he _ should be the one breaking it.

 

He swallows, hiding his dismay.

 

“Hello, Credence.”

 

It’s lucky the boy isn’t flinching or hiding like the last time. It’s not so lucky, Graves thinks, that he still appears to be dissociating. This tranquility of his as he slowly lowers his gaze, taking in the shiny black of his brogues as if it fascinated him, isn’t only eerie - it means there won’t be much to take away from this meeting as well.

 

“Hello, Mr. Graves”, he says. His voice is odd, and raspy. As if he had lost mastery of it.

 

Upon closer inspection Graves sees his eyes are dry, and yet red-rimmed. Puffy. He sees eyelashes clumped together, hears slow, dragging breaths. He puts two and two together with the vague, vague comments Auror Yañez had made as he guided him down, about the Congress having reunited that afternoon again - and curses his lack of information to keep the addition going.

 

“Were the handcuffs taken away today?”, he asks, half to confirm his Auror’s leaks, and half to make conversation. All of this is uncharted territory.

 

Credence nods. His movements aren’t all that coordinated when he rises both hands to show him his bare wrists.

 

There’s twin bands of new scar tissue around them, and Graves-- He raises a pointed index as if asking  _ ‘hold on’, _ and turns around so the boy doesn’t see the way the sight had made his face twist into a silent howl.

 

Oppkroppen handcuffs. He had seen them, smelled the ozone and burnt flesh of them, demanded them to be taken off. He still hadn’t known the extent of the damage.

 

Criminals who had already had undergone a trial weren’t to be kept at MACUSA’s basement. The sheer size of the United States means there’s several actual prisons for Wizarding folk: One buried under the Mojave for the West, one in Alaska for the non-violent, another one for special cases lost in the cays south of Florida. The one that corresponds to New York’s jurisdiction lies on an island amidst the violent waves of Lake Superior, Michigan.

 

MACUSA’s basement is for detainees, for the ones awaiting extradition, and the ones whose destiny is The Pool.

 

Oppkroppen handcuffs. Graves knows Grindelwald, locked down in a cell whose location in the building he hasn’t dared to ask for yet, is wearing another pair.  _ That’s what they are meant for _ \- to suppress dark wizards, cut them away from their magic, burn them if they try to reach for it anyway.

 

This is a child being punished for having been turned into a weapon he has no control of.

 

He takes a deep breath, and then another, and turns around already having pulled himself into the very picture of composure. He finds Credence in the exact same position he had left him, awaiting.

 

“I’ll get you a Dittany salve for that”, he offers in the end. “To heal your wrists. I’m glad at least you aren’t wearing those things anymore.” 

 

Credence nods, wary. Graves notices he’s staring at the arm he still has on the sling first, and then at the hand holding his cane. He shivers. He doesn’t know what to make of it, and he can’t reply to what he doesn’t understand.

 

“Are you being mistreated?”, has to be the most stupid question by this point. It makes Graves feel like he has just forgotten an entire career of experience handling victims. meager as his abilities comforting anyone always were. Still, it’s an important one. “The handcuffs are off, but if there’s something else…”

 

The thing is, the boy seems to be understanding as little as he does.

 

Graves opts for straightforwardness, “you look miserable.”

 

“The Obscurus is being kept asleep, and I’m very tired, sir”, is the quiet, equally straightforward reply. “It is what it is.”

 

What a stilted, disturbing talk had this become. And so very quickly, too.

 

“... May I come closer?”, he asks in the end. Credence shrugs and looks away -  _ a no _ , Graves thinks, until the boy sighs, slumping.

 

“I’m…”, he seems to be having trouble articulating. “Not sure why would you want to.”

 

 _A yes, then?_ Graves takes one, two, three steps towards Credence’s bed. He doesn’t remember having leaned this heavily on his cane earlier that day. The boy doesn’t stop him, so he gets a little closer still, and when he sees him slumping forward, he stops immediately.

 

“Do you want me to leave?”, he asks, and he’s being sincere. This is good enough. He can come back another day.

 

Silence stretches so long and so inexpressive it’s hard to not fidget. But he manages.

 

“... You shouldn’t be talking to me like this”, Credence says in the end. It sets Graves’ pulse to race, but he needs to know.

 

“How so?”, he prompts. He was good at being imperturbable - and he can still look the part.

 

“Like I’m a person”, and  _ oh.  _ The boy’s soft voice, the raspier tightening of his words, they hit Graves like a blunt instrument. He sees him shiver before adding, “like I’m not going to die.”

 

He’s the first one to avert his gaze. He feels Credence still staring at him, hears the rustling of the blanket being adjusted around his shoulders.

 

_ ‘This is sorrow’, _ Graves thinks, trying to disentangle whatever in hell is happening in his own chest. He swallows it. Fury is far more useful.

 

The  _ fuck _ has been Congress telling the boy.

 

“You’re not going to die”, he replies, and the hint of growling sharpens the sentence into a vow. “I won’t stand for it.”

 

Credence just… closes his eyes, face twisting as if he had been stung. It’s the first time Graves has seen actual emotion during their entire talk. 

 

He doesn’t speak again. Graves keeps him company in silence for five long minutes, and leaves.

 

This building whose threshold he’s rushed to cross every morning for almost twenty years, it’s starting to feel like it’s been dropped down on him. He needs more coffee, probably some sugar, and enough time alone to think of his next move.

 

He’ll dig their way out if he has to.

 

 

 

\------------

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... So this chapter became long enough it merited being separate in another part |'DD So it looks like this WIP will be longer than expected. Yay?
> 
> Let's all cheer for Jujuls, who's going through finals and still somehow manages to draw the illustrations for this fic, ok? ;3 Go drop her a nice message at [her art tumblr](https://jujulsarts.tumblr.com/) if you'd like, even! She's the best ♥ 
> 
> And please please do comment, comments pour life back into my blackened heart. Tell us what you liked (or not), or otherwise come yell at me at my [Tumblr.](fractalspaces.tumblr.com)


	4. Call & Response (Is Instrumental)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The letter had been sent on December 13th, the day he had woken up. His sense of time has been shot to hell and back - he’s started struggling to remember how long it’s been from then, they’ve just started to actually give him his mail, and Graves doesn’t have to ask to tell the wax seal isn’t the same Theseus had dripped on the envelope. He still leaves its contents to be read for later. Senior Auror Scamander and him had been barely colleagues for about five, almost six years now, and the _‘I should have noticed’_ burns behind his closed eyelids."
> 
> \----
> 
> Wherein the depths of Graves' loneliness is showcased through three meetings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm like stupidly late for IRL shit and running so. Author notes will be added later :'D Please do comment, tho'. Comments make my life happier ♥

_‘I should’ve known’,_ the letter opens, immediately below the Ministry of Magic’s header and the formal address Theseus had greeted him with. _‘I should’ve noticed. And you ought to know I’m deeply sorry.’_

 

There’s far more written on the parchment, and yet Graves has to roll it back and close his eyes for at least a minute, hands and letter folded on top of the covers of his hospital bed. It takes him so long to find his composure, the ceiling lamp has lit up on its own by the time he’s opened them again, keeping the darkness falling upon the city outside the window panes.

 

Once upon a time, Theseus Scamander had been far less proper - and this stilted style in his letters, a private joke. It’s hard for him to correlate Britain’s unflappable Senior Auror with the young man from his memories at the trenches - the one who hid his inexperience behind grinning recklessness, and his terror behind reckless passion.

 

They had last seen each other in October, when the Task Force had summoned them both to the Black Forest in a wild hunt for Grindelwald. They had ended up becoming prey, scattered through the area, losing half their squad.

 

Graves likes thinking _he_ hadn’t changed that much. Theseus, who back from the war had grown out his hair as soon as he could, who had fiercely defied anyone who told him a queer man would never make it as an Auror…

 

_‘It’s alright’,_ he wants to write back. _‘There’s no way you could have.’_

 

He’s self-aware enough to know it’s his fault. And he’s proud enough to not want to dwell on it.

 

Nor in how that mission had been the last time he had seen Theseus while still _himself_. The rest remains a blur - his brain deleted the battle almost entirely, except for bits and pieces he can only glue together with the help of his medical records. Graves knows he was made to talk and walk when he shouldn’t have been moving. He knows he was glamoured to hell and back to pass inadverted upon his return.

 

He had kept fighting the entire time until he had broken out of the Imperius Curse snarling, lunging at a newly arrived Grindelwald with the same lamp he had been forced to make into a Portkey. A chain of magic had him wrapped and choking before his body even hit the floor of his own living room.

 

It had, for sure, been the start of a dynamic.

 

The letter had been sent on December 13th, the day he had woken up. His sense of time has been shot to hell and back - he’s started struggling to remember how long it’s been from then, they’ve just started to actually give him his mail, and Graves doesn’t have to ask to tell the wax seal isn’t the same Theseus had dripped on the envelope. He still leaves its contents to be read for later. Senior Auror Scamander and him had been barely colleagues for about five, almost six years now, and the _‘I should have noticed’_ burns behind his closed eyelids.

 

He should've made more on an effort to keep in touch, considering the way they parted. Then again, it was him the one who made Theseus and him strangers.

 

(“It is what it is”, Credence had said. Such a fine line between despair and resignation.)

 

When the nurse comes in with the vial of Dreamless Sleep, he doesn’t fight her.

 

The next day comes with an equally oppressive grey sky that has him rebelling against the very room he’s been held in and thinking of the winters through the Great War, of all the damn things. He waits for the Healers to leave him be with all of the patience he can muster, needing the outside world. He had never thought the scent of _sterile_ would do this to his head, or that he’d ache for the bite of the wind on his skin.

 

(The Healers, once again, allow him outside with a promise to come back at sundown that makes him want to scream himself raw. How long until he’s discharged?)

 

But Graves’ is a city to be walked, unkind with battered men and their canes. Grand Central Terminal and its subterranean hub of wizarding stores is too far from his reach without resorting to either Apparition or the No-Maj subway he loathes, and so is Washington Square Park, where crossing the arch would’ve unveiled the invisible nature of NYU’s Main Building - Manhattan’s chapter of the AIM, where the School of Healers and the Auror Academy hold classes side by side, and whose library he still loves.

 

From the entrance of the Margaret Jones hospital, hidden in plain sight at 5 Beekman Street, the very first thing he sees is City Hall Park, and the Woolworth Building - even if he doesn’t want to.

 

If he crosses in a clean diagonal through the park and Broadway Street, it’s out of his own will. If he awaits to be led to the boy’s cells, it’s mostly to be easy on the protocol, and take care of the Aurors who are still loyal enough to bypass it for him.

 

Something curls burning and bitter all the way down from Graves’ throat to his stomach when he’s told, they don’t know _when_ the Research Department will be done with Credence, and that it’d be better if he just went home.

 

He won’t because _he can’t._ There’s no way he’s ever setting foot again in the brownstone he had lived in since coming to New York at eighteen.

 

But he does leave, and the checkered tile and white walls of Max Security give way to the grey tunnels of the upper levels. A ride in the elevator and two turns to the right, to the dark hardwood and dust scent at Human Resources.

 

It’s not so late the building should be this empty. The echo of his own cane as a prelude of his steps has Graves bristling - Too foreign, too much like a ticking clock. A part of him insists he’s being ridiculous. Another, that he’s wearing the sling for a damn good reason.

 

He finds Queenie Goldstein closing the door to Wand Permits with a hip, carrying an ornate golden tray. From afar he recognizes a vanilla cauldron, and a familiar china cup smelling like coffee and brandy. A dollop of whipped cream crowns the mixture - Seraphina's favorite.

 

The President's office is ten stories upwards, and she could have had _anyone_ in MACUSA making her coffee, but nobody quite handled drinks and pastries as well as Goldstein did. Nor information.

 

“Director?”, she calls, grinning with the same warmth she bestows upon practically everyone around with the exception of Abernathy. “What a delightful surprise! Thought you were still--”

 

Graves makes a small gesture with the cane in return - he can’t let go of it, and his left arm is something he doesn’t feel like moving. “Afternoon, Goldstein.”

 

There’s a pause wherein Goldstein-The-Younger is clearly awaiting for his cue. Graves clears his throat, checks the strength of the mental barriers he still puts up by instinct whenever he spots her, and says, “you must be aware I’m here on business.”

 

She bites her lip, and a bit of the sunshine she radiates dulls down. “You’re here because of dear Credence. Isn’t it, sir?”

 

Not unexpected at all. His Aurors knew, her sister Tina had brought him to the boy on the first place, and by now he was pretty sure the gossip levels _had_ to have shot up the grapevine ‘till the upper echelons, despite Seraphina having been too busy to visit him after the day he had woken up.

 

Graves replies to the question with a question, manners be damned. “You do know you’d be better suited for Mental Investigations, right? Talent like yours.”

 

There’s a good reason he’s made sure to keep his Occlumency sharp ever since she started working at MACUSA. Queenie Goldstein is _powerful,_ and probably way more than what she would’ve liked. The first time he had felt her mind reaching out to his had been a total accident - all youth and a lack of control from her part.

 

She sighs, and Mercy Lewis, is he good at vanishing the smiles off people.

 

“Can you blame a girl, Director Graves? I do know what goes on in there.”

 

Quietly, she sets her tray down on a table, and taps it with her wand twice so the coffee didn’t grow cold.

 

Graves counts to three and replies, “Tina already sneaked you to visit Credence.” And he has no evidence of it beyond Auror Goldstein’s propensity to disregard the letter of the law in favor of its spirit, but he knows he’s struck his mark when Queenie goes from looking exhausted to gritting her teeth, lips pursed.

 

“That was _horrible”,_ she grits out, and Graves realizes, this is the first time she’s ever shown anything but a perky disposition at work. She’s _livid._ “What they did to him. He was in shock and he couldn’t talk and, Director, _they forced him_! Three of them at once, like he was this kind of-- some sorta thing that--”

 

She doesn’t complete those sentences, clearly too upset. He discovers he shares her fury, that his blood is boiling.

 

As far as he knew, Seraphina wanted him safe and healthy and _retired._

 

He’d come back and reform the procedures of the entire fucking Department of Magical Security, on his own if he had to.

 

Graves takes a deep breath or three, forcing the emotional beast inside of his chest down, down, the way he had been taught as a child. He _has_ realized how much harder it is now, but sheer obstinacy could carry him a long way.

 

“So you care about him”, he offers, and his calm sounds almost genuine.

 

“Course I do!”, and Queenie wrings her hands, looking away. “Poor darlin’ has been through so much, I’d take him in if I could!”

 

That settled it.

 

Queenie Goldstein, who has likely been exposed to everyone’s secrets in this building, and hasn't let them turn her bitter - Graves knows she is to be trusted.

 

“Goldstein”, he says. “I need your help.”

 

What he asks has nothing to do with the disgusting violation of the mind Credence Barebone had endured. If the boy was practically mute, if he snarled in fury at the sight of him and spoke as if he didn’t deserve to be alive-- There had to be someone better than him to make him _stable_.

 

There’s no shame in delegating.

 

In this limbo wherein Graves remains the Director with none of the perks of the title, he can’t grant her clearance. But Tina had it, and he could count on four of his Aurors to look away when the Goldsteins went down the basement.

 

Queenie’s mission would consist solely in talking to the boy, and helping him to open up. Maybe enough Graves could speak to him in the future without sending him down a spiral.

 

“I’m not sure I understand”, she dares, eyebrows furrowed. “I’ll do it, just… Director. Would you need a report, or like--? Teenie told me about a dossier.”

 

“I’m not touching that dossier more than it’s needed”, Graves replies. He had already seen more of it than he should have. “He has no privacy to speak of already.”

 

_December 6th, 16:30 aprox. - suspect meets Gellert Grindelwald in an alleyway at Pike St. between E. Broadway and Henry St. Given a necklace with G.G.’s personal symbol (Ev. #3), scene described in following paragraph [...]_

 

Healing, an embrace, a sense of belonging...

 

_‘I want you to have this, Credence.'_

 

Sugar and poison, wearing his face and his voice.

 

Graves shudders, bile flaring so quickly it makes him dizzy. He takes another deep breath, leaning on the cane in ways he’d rather die before confessing.

 

He thinks of two months inside his own damn closet while nobody noticing. Of him putting the entirety of his fading strength in breaking Grindelwald’s _Imperius_ over and over - until the fucker had given up and settled for torture and starvation and Calming Draught, so he could keep stealing away his memories.

 

He already knows his left arm would never stop hurting. He already knows the only reason he hasn’t jumped out of his window at Margaret Jones is _spite._

 

Queenie is looking at him, horrified, and in that very moment, he’s struck by the certainty he had been thinking too loud. Shame washes over him, but he doesn't apologize. He is a Graves. Apologizing would mean admitting he had been seen.

 

“Director…” she starts, hesitant, and then changes the topic so abruptly it makes his head spin. “We don’t… we don’t celebrate, at home, y’know? But we’d both be happy to sneak you in for dinner, Teenie and I.”

 

“... What for?”, he can’t help but ask.

 

It shows she’s trying her best to smile at him. “It’s Christmas Eve, sir.”

 

Graves huffs. Something in his chest wells up, and he can’t name it - but his pride speaks before he can steer it “... The Graves’ family hasn’t done Christmas since Salem, Goldstein.”

 

She’s still doing her best, but Queenie’s face is far too mobile fo him to not notice her disappointment. “O-oh... Well then. Hannukah’s over already so... “

 

“It’s fine”, Graves finds himself saying. “Don’t worry about it.”

 

Silence can be such a stupidly heavy thing. It itches on his skin, and then she just-- She looks at her tray, at his cane, at the plaster of the ceiling.

 

“... So, ah. About Credence, yes?”

 

Shop talk. This is fine.

 

His father had repeated until it stuck, _'compassion is a necessary human trait. It doesn't mean you have to practice yours in public’._

 

He had lived by those words. He had focused in being a cool-headed, rational man. A brilliant Auror, a fair but demanding boss. He earned the loyalty of the people working under him through a combination of smarts and battle prowess, and kept his job as far as he could from his private life.

 

“Well”, he says. “He thinks he isn’t a person. So we’ll prove him wrong, won’t we?”

 

Graves knows this isn’t like him. That anyone else but Queenie Goldstein would’ve questioned his motives on trying to help a complete stranger who’s threatened the Statue, cavorted with dark wizards, and can’t stand the sight of him unless he’s dissociating.

 

He’s played his part so well until now, people at the Woolworth Building think him incapable of human emotions.

 

It’s no wonder Grindelwald supplanted him so easily.

 

Reading off her face what she isn't saying, Graves finds understanding, rather than pity. He still is who he is, he thinks. He still holds the power of his family and the weight of his sacrifice to do what he must. Credence Barebone needs to be freed but he's also to be kept happy, for everyone's sake - and so he would. If resolve was contagious...

 

Right now the beauty of Queenie, for a man like Graves who had never so much as looked at women, is that she doesn’t need to ask.

 

"Honey", she says, dropping the title for the very first time. Solemn determination shines through her features like light itself. "You can count on me."

 

Graves doesn't smile back at her. But he doesn't chastise her for the breach of protocol either - Instead, he sets his cane aside to clap her shoulder once, willingly projecting gratitude, and lets her leave.

 

Christmas noon finds him walking through MACUSA’s doorways once again.

 

There aren’t many people in the building to actually appreciate how the entire place had been decked in garlands and lights, bows in red and green and golden globes hanging around every corner. With both Grindelwald and Credence locked in the basement, the Magical Exposure clock had gone lower to rest on a cheery Level 2, raining down silver snowflakes. He reaches out to touch them - They vanish, warm, as soon as they touch his skin.

 

Graves sighs and drags his step towards the Salem Memorial - the only place in the hall that had been kept as grey as ever.

 

Theseus had sent him a Floo Telegram that morning.

 

_‘Graves._  
_Talk to me.’_

 

He had resisted the urge to burn it down. Whatever had been between them was long gone.

 

Auror Goldstein takes him out of his own mind, arriving to their meeting place on the edge of punctuality. He’d never tell her he’s grateful.

 

She escorts him to his office, ignoring Red’s attempts at gossip, and the sharp, distrustful look he gave him every time he rode his elevator. Graves only explains her the plan once they’re safe under the intricate layer of his wards. The shock in her face has him suppressing a wince.

 

“I just…”, Tina mutters. She takes a pause he allows, and replenishes the natural steel reserves of her spine to contradict him to his face. “Sir, I don’t think it’s a good idea. It’s-- It’s actually a pretty terrible one.”

 

The way Graves is looking at her might have shriveled up anyone else, but this rookie Auror who had only spent about a month in the team under his direct command before October… She had once interrupted an international government meeting armed with nothing but a suitcase and a suspect.

 

He isn’t surprised when she swallows her anxiety and carries on.

 

“Director… You need to take care of yourself first. Queenie and I, we had been thinking, we would be happy to have him once he’s out. We could even move to another building so he doesn’t have to stay all hidden. And you have never been--”

 

“Good company?”, interjects Graves, tersely.

 

“... A family man, sir.”

 

Every conversation he’s been having since he woke up goes stilted at times and he hates it. Silence and stillness spread thick through the office for a second or two, the gray light of late December streaming inside in dusty lines.

 

He grabs the bottle of whiskey he's always kept in one of his drawers, pleased to see the seal unbroken. And fortifies the coffee he had brought with him, offering to do the same for Tina’s with a gesture. She shakes her head, waiting for him to speak.

 

“Goldstein, let it be on record - I don’t have to give explanations to you. I’ve already decided.” He drinks, and the soft shiver of caffeine and alcohol soothes his knotted back in ways he hadn’t known he had needed, Healers be damned. “If I’m choosing to _inform you_ of it, it’s because we’re both interested in Credence’s welfare, and you have been integral for a decent resolution of this fiasco.”

 

Auror Goldstein just nods, looking uncomfortable.

 

“For the sake of argument, let’s say you take him in”, Graves continues, calm and collected as if giving a lecture. “What will you do if he loses control? You know Congress will want him dead as soon as a single strand of black sand emerges from him again. Would you be able to contain him, without destroying him? Would you be able to make the final call, if things came to worse?”

 

He hasn’t even spoke to Seraphina, or the Congress about this. He doesn't care. It’s what is going to happen.

 

Goldstein is looking at him as if he had struck her.

 

“I’m an Auror, sir”, is her sole reply. “We all have to be prepared to make such a call."

 

He drinks again, and ponders an apology.

 

“... I don’t pretend to be condescending”, he tells her, softer now.

 

He really wasn’t. Tina, he has been watching her since she was a trainee. Graves knows exactly how good she is. It was her bleeding heart, and not her lack of ability what had been her undoing.

 

“Is this about raw power, then?”, she asks in the end. “So you can convince President Picquery, at least.”

 

“It is what it is”. 

 

Quietly, Tina replies, “then it’s good to know your magic has returned to normal, sir.”

 

There’s a subtle motherly tint to her worry that allows Graves to not bristle at the implications. Even when the source of said worry is fifteen years his junior, and he’s made plenty clear before they are not friends.

 

Uncomfortable, she explains rather unnecessarily, “there are rumors.”

 

The pallor suddenly marring Graves’ face would tell her he had figured it out. So many people coming and going from Margaret Jones, the fact he hadn’t been cleared to go yet...

 

Dry enough it’s impossible Tina would be entirely convinced, he looks into her eyes and says, “then you’ll be pleased to hear they’re not true.”

 

She takes her own mug, finally. Her fingers look pale as they wrap about the porcelain for warmth.

 

“We are all worried about you, Director Graves”, she states quietly. “None of us know what exactly happened to you, it’s classified, and. That’s something we can respect, you know?”

 

_Not true._

 

“It’s-- you have a right to privacy”, she keeps going, as if she hadn’t noticed how hardened his face was growing. “But… You’re supposed to be on leave. We’d all want you to take it easy...”

 

_Not true._

 

“You haven’t been cleared out of the ‘Jones yet, and. You keep coming here, to do all these things and asking about other cases too, even though-- Shouldn’t you be recovering?”

 

_“Goldstein.”_

 

“Sir, but… But how are you going to get better, if you keep focusing on-- _functioning_ , for everyone else’s sake?”

 

The flash of anger narrowing Graves’ eyes would’ve chilled a room.

 

He holds her gaze, pinning her in place. Tina gasps when she looks away and realizes, the sudden, icy current whipping through the office is actual magic, and not the fear prickling at her skin. Graves swallows his curse when he notices it, too.

 

Frost is clouding the glass panes of his cabinets, curling like pale vines over the furniture, the ceiling, the checkered floor.

 

Shame makes it go away as fast as it appeared. He’s indecent enough to make it as it hadn’t happened.

 

“You are overstepping”, he notifies her, oddly calm.

 

“I’m sorry, sir.”

 

Graves just drinks what’s left of his coffee, and steeples his fingers. This could be any routine meeting of the past year, he tells to himself.

 

There’s a scar across his brow, and he’s gaunt enough his black coat falls loose on him, and the wand that had been his most trusted companion since Ilvermorny is still locked somewhere in the Evidence Room.

 

His magic had just gone rogue on him at just a taste of strong emotion. _Like a child’s._

 

“I’ll be coming here to fight for Credence’s release through the next week”, and Graves is being definitive on this. “He’ll need to settle in, and in the future, we’ll be looking whether he’s fit enough for magic lessons.”

 

… Did he even had enough left for a wand? Hadn't it been devoured completely by strife and pain? He shakes his head, clicking his tongue.

 

Tina looks like she’s going to say something. He doesn’t let her.

 

“I know there’s going to be a while before I’m allowed back at my position”, and his wide, sweeping gesture speaks of confidence. “So _I am_ going to take my time on leave seriously from then on, for as long as I can stand leaving this Department to fend for itself. No matter who they’re leaving as a deputy.”

 

There were just so many things to do, that he wanted to see done himself. Forced into inactivity, Graves knows he’d go crazy with nothing to do but stewing at home, surrounded by the memories of his time away. At least he was already on the hunt for another apartment.

 

And had found something productive to do in the meantime.

 

He stands up, takes his cane out of the umbrella stand. “You should go back to your holiday. I’m glad they reinstated you, you were wasting away at Wand Permits.”

 

“Will Queenie and I be cleared to keep interacting with Credence?”, asks Tina. “After things are settled.”

 

He knows she’s absolutely going to take a look at the official statement on the resolution of the case later, but he’ll humor her. Both sisters had gotten quickly attached to the boy.

 

“Don’t let Seraphina hear me, but yes. Either officially or not.” And the way this sudden, blatant disregard for the law he's displaying makes her bite her lip gets a pleased rumble out of him. “Credence Barebone needs all the allies he can get.”

 

Twenty years at MACUSA, two months in captivity. Nobody had noticed the gross, deathly threat under their noses. Nobody had noticed Credence, either, fallen through the cracks and tortured by zealots who shouldn't have gone overlooked in their own capital.

 

_They owe them._

 

The thing with Tina is her intuition. And her bleeding heart, and her inability to keep her mouth shut.

 

“What about you? Sir.”

 

Graves ruffles his hair and then slicks it back, scowling. But there’s no anger this time. Just exhaustion shining through, a deep-bone kind of deal that he knows makes him look grayer, that makes the lines around his eyes deeper.

 

“For the last time, Goldstein. There’s nothing to worry about.”

 

\------------

 

 

 

 

 

 


	5. A (Bootleg) Bridge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ache in his chest insists on calling for his attention until he decides to walk back to Tribeca for as long as the cane allows him, just so he can nurse it before reaching his next stop.
> 
> ‘Not everything is lost’, he repeats. Half of his life had gone up in ashes. The other half had gone into boxes.
> 
> Couldn’t give birth to a new era without doing away with the past one, Graves thinks, and exhales - holding onto a promise of better days to come. _This is right._
> 
> \----
> 
> Time for a respite, and for better decisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so so very sorry for taking so long to post this!! Truly, the real life bowled me over for the past... ow, weeks. But hey! This chapter is extra-long to compensate? Even longer than the previous one :'3 Your support truly means a lot to me, and I hope the story continues being to y'all's liking ♥
> 
> ([Jujuls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribacchina)' iPad broke down and so, she couldn't do a drawing. But today's illustration/cover was actually done by Elsie ([Na_Shao]()) herself! ;w; Go show them some love, yeah?
> 
> Thank you so much for waiting for me ♥

   


 

 

   


\------------

 

 

The entrance hall of the Margaret Jones Hospital has a commemorative plaque with the engraved portrait of its namesake; and a clock whose handles are carved in the shape of a midwifery tool for the hours, with a replica of her wand for the minutes.

 

Graves stares it down as if he could make time go faster through willpower alone. The soft chime of noon fills him with gratitude, and he doesn’t lose a second in stepping outside, taking big gulps of winter air, so crisp he couldn’t taste his city’s smog in it.

 

The next thing he does is chucking his copies of that morning’s New York Times and New York Ghost in the garbage can by the corner. He has what he needs of them - a solution to his hunt for an apartment, and the reassurance of not being in the news, at least for one more day.

 

Seraphina’s done a stellar job of keeping the most she could of the Subway Incident under wraps. The mages of America at large know of the Obscurus, but not of his identity. Know Grindelwald was behind it, but not that he had infiltrated the government, and in return, there’s just a few select people privy to how _Director Percival Graves_ had gotten in such a poor shape.

 

As far as usual procedures went, any Healers, Nurses, and Aurors involved in confidential cases ended up sworn to secrecy - which wasn’t hard to achieve, either by sheer loyalty or decree. And Congress didn’t speak to the newspapers of anything they didn’t want to reveal. Keeping a Magical Exposure Clock visible was one thing - letting the public know of the vulnerabilities of MACUSA was beyond inadmissible, no matter the party.

 

(Graves is still pretty sure there’s rumors anyway. Two weeks recovering from an injury? Him?)  
  


Senior Auror Darius Arcenaux greets him by the door, all tranquil smiles as always - though the Louisiana accent showing through his New Yorker tells Graves he hasn’t slept. His partner, Rigel Blake, doesn’t look much better when she joins them by the elevator: The only thing in a worse disarray than her hair is her crumpled tie.

 

“Should I get the coffee pot brewing?”, he asks, one eyebrow arched, and Arcenaux winces in reply before he can help it.

 

“He’ll faint if he has any more, sir. We’ve been running interrogations all night”, Auror Blake explains, and it looks like she’s fighting herself before she adds, “at Room 404.”

 

If Graves doesn’t keep asking, it’s because Blake is already hinting at the _‘it’s classified’_ he doesn’t want to hear.

 

It’s also because if he has confirmation of _which_ is Grindelwald’s holding cell, he isn’t sure he wouldn’t take justice by his own hand, ICW be damned.

 

He can’t help but crumple and fiddle with the notification in his pocket as he’s led down to the Evidence Room. He’d gotten told that very morning his wand had been cleared to be returned, and his right hand itches with the need to hold it again. There’s been _phantom pains_ with the lack of it, flares of wild magic so humiliating he’s done his best to keep them from the Healers despite the uncomfortable awareness _they have to know -_ at the very least through the tests they keep running.

 

This will fix things. It will.

 

Arcenaux and Blake ask him to wait by the entrance out of protocol, as if Graves hadn’t memorized the outline of these rows and rows of lockers so well he’d navigate them blind. This is something he can’t resent from these Aurors, his team. His official status is ‘on leave’, but the actual place between being a suspect and being convicted is looking more and more like a limbo he’d remain in for a while. The fact he’s being given back his wand as the investigation continues is fortunate enough.

 

Rigel Blake is a woman incapable of staying solemn for too long. There’s a bit of a bow, and a quirk to her lips when she presents Graves with a light wooden box, and goes stand next to Arcenaux - whose handsome, dark face looks livelier by the second despite his exhaustion.

 

 _They’re happy for him._ There’s no mistaking. And honestly? He’s glad.

 

The box unlocks and opens at a soft stroke of his palm over the lid. Graves could’ve cried at the familiar feel of his fingers around the silver handle.

 

Could’ve cried, too, at the sudden, sinking _loss_ when his index brushes the mother-of-pearl inlay, and there’s no hum of recognition from it. He inhales sharply, and rubs it again - purposefully this time. It remains inert to his touch, and now, _that_ send his pulse spiking.

 

He’s so self-aware of his widening eyes, his stone face when Arcenaux calls for him, cautious.

 

“Director?”, he says, and Graves is cursing on the inside as he forces himself to soften.

 

“Just missed it”, he reassures him. Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise when he’s believed. “How did the _Priori Incantatem_ go?”

 

“He did use it”, Blake replies, spotting and meeting Arcenaux’s frown out of the corner of her eye. She scratches the back of her neck, unable to hide her unease. “Somehow made it yield. Ebony’s not supposed to do that.”

 

 _‘Nothing is the way it’s supposed to’,_ Graves would’ve told her, but he’s out of energy to make it sound nonchalant, and swallows the urge down. The flash of anger had flared so briefly and so brightly he had gone straight to feeling blank and now he just--

 

So the fucker used his wand.

 

It’s still his wand and it would work again. He’ll need time and effort to make it clean, purify the filth of Grindelwald’s touch off it, and it’ll come back. He’ll just need to find the patience for it.

 

“No, it’s not”, Graves agrees, almost casual. It could've masked the ringing in his own ears. “Nevertheless, I hope Research got of it what they wanted, because I’m not giving it back.”

 

“All done”, Arcenaux shakes his head. “The only thing left to discuss is the date of the trial.”

 

“I imagine there’s not much else you can tell me about it?” But his bitterness, his _everything_ can pass easily for the sarcasm his team is used to.

 

“No, sir”, and Graves just. He puts the wand in his waistcoat pocket, comforted at least a little bit by the weight of it through the Extension Charm. He doesn’t expect the Auror he’s appointed as Chief of Investigations to follow that up with a “... We aren’t in charge of that case.”

 

Which makes too much damn sense. It still doesn’t mean he isn’t fighting the urge to take the elevator just to go scream at Seraphina, but he knows he’s being irrational. He’s already been afforded far more privileges than any random suspect - ensuring there’s no biases is standard procedure.

 

It squeezes at his heart. But he knows there’s no logic to paranoia. He’s innocent. The trial _is_ going to rule to his favor.

 

This is _right._

 

(What is she playing at? Why?)

 

Seraphina, he’ll bother her in due time. Going down to the basement is an exercise in denial that takes up far more energy than he’d have left otherwise.

 

Grindelwald is there. If he doesn’t have the certainty of _where_ , he can’t go off on his own, which is a good thing. This way, he won’t fuck up his chances to help Credence Barebone.

 

His wand hadn’t felt more a part of him than the cane does. The idea turns his sweat to ice. His magic is already all over the place, and--

 

He shakes his head and takes a deep breath. Maybe it’s just a matter of getting reacquainted with it.

 

His Aurors escort him right to the elevator. Arcenaux excuses himself with paperwork, Blake mentions something about the Juniors needing the routes for that day’s patrols. They let him go through the gates on his own. and for that, he’s grateful too.

 

Four, five Aurors in the entire department, willing to look away for him. Dangerous for everyone involved, including him, were one of them to betray him, and yet…

 

Graves stands outside Credence’s room, looking at him through the two-way mirror to appraise his state. Whether it’s safe or not to enter and talk. Queenie Goldstein _has_ come in, he’s been told this, but there’s no change he can spot - in the blinding white of the room and his scrubs and his blanket, the boy looks as miserable as always.

 

He would be the same, he thinks, in a place like this. So sterile it gives the Margaret Jones and its irritating green linoleum a run for its money. The lamps on the ceiling work through magic, as everything in Woolworth does, but even their light appears to be doing their best imitation of a bright, grey winter day, throwing a sallow tint on Credence Barebone’s skin.

 

These cells had never bothered him this much.

 

He isn’t going in.

 

One and thirty on the afternoon, Graves checks, and witnesses a bowl of chicken soup and an enamel mug full of tea materializing on Credence’s nightstand. The boy doesn’t even emerge from the blanket to reach for the second one, looking at the soup with distrust over the rim. By all means, it looks the same Graves has been forced to swallow at the hospital - everything boiled and chopped in small sizes, and he can almost smell the scum in the broth from where he is.

 

He sees him shiver, and it could be just disgust, but _Deliverance, that blanket looks thin._

  
Credence Barebone carefully sets down the mug on the nightstand again and blows on his scarred hands, watching them bloom redder with the lingering heat. There’s no change in his expression when he rocks himself for a moment or two inside his blanket, before he bares his teeth in what appears to be frustration, and throws it aside.

 

The inside of his nightstand drawer is just as dangerously empty as he looks, except for a wooden case full of tin vials. Graves sees him drink from one of them, shivering again before reaching for the chicken soup.

 

Magic knows what possesses him to stay until the boy is done with his meal. Someone else might have called it inappropriate, but he wants to think it’s just a bit of first-hand research, to make up for the untouched dossier in his own drawer. He watches him extend the blanket carefully over the pale sheets of the bed, and getting under the covers to curl up on his side. Sleeping? He can’t tell from where he is.  
  


… Does Credence even have anything to pass the time inside of this cell?

 

The question bothers him so badly it replaces his unease about his magic. And this is how Graves knows, he can’t stand for this either.

 

By the time he’s left the Woolworth Building for the busy intersection of Broadway and Park Row, his destination is clear beyond doubt.

 

He hates the subway. Has done since the war - being underground and the noise of the train moving through the tunnel is so made of bad memories he only resorts to it if there’s literally no other option better than the Not Being There and the need to recover after he steps out of it. _‘That’s what Apparition is for’,_ is his usual, dismissive comment. He’s come to terms with this. The Rappaport Law helps to keep it shrouded.

 

He doesn’t expect to feel the same while waiting in line for the streetcar. The steady knotting in his throat, the jumping on his pulse, they’re things he can’t understand, and he _can’t manage_ something so far out of rationality right now, when there’s things to get done.

 

He’s hailing a cab, then. He’ll make do.

 

The design of Grand Central Terminal is a reminder of the kind of beauty the No-Maj can achieve just through straight lines and curves and math. The owners of New York had filled it up with symbols whose knowledge came from before the Statute had split their kinds, there’s secret rooms and discreet private tunnels for their personal uses, an exclusive, hidden bar whose windows overlook a Central Hall filled with light.  
  


It would’ve been one of the highest points of the city even without the colorful display of the underground, commercial district mages had built right under it, moving from the way less discreet locations scattered through the Rialto and Union Square.

 

He’s been using his partial freedom in such strange ways lately. But he understands it better when the hurried crowds in this enclosed space keep him on edge even as he crosses the threshold hidden at the Whispering Gallery. _Touch its northern arch, go down the ramp, watch the No-Maj restaurant shifting into a set of ornate stairs -_ it’s all been engraved into his brain ever since he first explored the city on his own as a child, slipping away unnoticed from his father’s stuffy meetings. Mercury Strip opens before his eyes in an orderly hallway of stores teeming with people and, watching them from the landing, their colorful mesh of robes and modern fashion hurrying through a space far too narrow for their numbers forces Graves to blink long and tight twice.

 

He’s still himself, he thinks. And he’d work again.

 

When he emerges from the underground with his pockets full of Shrunk paperbags, he makes a beeline for Campbell Apartment. Bless the No-Maj who had thought of putting a speakeasy where he’d wouldn’t be spotted by mages, so close to the magical district. The cane and the sling, at least, would hide the way his hands are shaking.

 

He has exactly one drink to coat the roof of his mouth with an aftertaste of oak, and steady his nerves before looking for a cab back to Beekman Street.

 

There’s nothing special about the morning of December 28th. Graves only realizes the date when he asks a nurse about it, tapping a quill against the real estate contract he had been mailed in time for breakfast. His window shows a day about as grey as any other so close to solstice, or New Year’s Eve.

 

He hopes for noon. Nowadays, the act of getting dressed and getting out is one of the few things allowing him to feel more normal. Even if his clothes, the few ones that weren’t touched by Grindelwald, feel loose on him in ways he would’ve never allowed before.

 

Graves is less stressed about traffic and crowds this time, but he still favors a cab over public transportation to his first stop. The Upper West Side brownstone his father had given him as a moving-out gift had been his home for the last twenty years, give or take a few considering the break from reality the hellfire of war had been.

 

(The trenches had poisoned his mind, as it had done with the entirety of a generation fated to know their stench, and yet, and yet, and yet…)

 

There’s things he has the duty to do here. And he’s grateful for the flickers of magic he knows he can still summon reliably. _Movement. Warmth._

 

 _‘Heat’,_ he wills, delineating the word silently, tongue behind his teeth in the last letter, and the pyre in front of him catches fire.

 

He just hopes the Concealment Charm one Graves Sr. had laid over the backyard extends high enough the No-Maj neighbors didn’t catch sight of the smoke. Riding himself of all the possessions that had came in contact with Gellert Grindelwald would’ve been deemed an extreme measure by many, but he needs it.

 

He’d ingrain salt into the floors if he could, but purifying by fire will have to do.

 

 _‘There’s not that much’,_ Graves thinks, watching the flames rise until his mind and his body start drifting apart. Seeking an anchor, he smoothens the list Auror Arcenaux had given him, smudging the ink with his rough, damp fingertips. Most of his things, he would be able to keep. But the Seniors had jotted down all the clothes and trinkets and furniture they had found tainted with the traces of Grindelwald’s signature.

 

He had drawn the line at his books, at his wand, and at the upright piano that had belonged to his mother a lifetime ago. The rest… He double-checks everything burns before he extinguishes the pyre with an exhausted wave of his hand.

 

It’s a surprise when his violent distaste at the acridness stinking up his clothes vanishes it, too, but Graves is glad to do away with a reminder that would’ve stuck to him the rest of the day. He won’t fool himself saying there’s no mourning to what he did. A part of him can scarcely believe it, wrap around the dimensions of the _loss._

 

 _‘I had to’,_ he states instead, knowing it to be true.

 

The ache in his chest insists on calling for his attention until he decides to walk back to Tribeca for as long as the cane allows him, just so he can nurse it before reaching his next stop.

 

‘ _Not everything is lost’,_ he repeats. Closing the door to his home has such a strident click, he reaches for the cold December breeze to ground him. 

 

(This is _right._ )

 

He still hasn’t seen Seraphina, but she sent him a note to tell him, she’d take care in person of the moving to ensure his safety. And damn him, maybe, for his trust. But the offer had _soothed him_ instead of turning on the alarms inside his head.

 

Half of his life had gone up in ashes. The other half had gone into boxes.

 

Couldn’t give birth to a new era without doing away with the past one, Graves thinks, and decides to continue by car once he reaches Columbus Circle. He hadn’t lasted that long for his past standards, coming from 74th Street, but this wasn’t about his pride, nor his aching right side - He knows he needs to start taking better care of himself.

  


So he will.

 

Nighttime finds him sprawling on the sofa an Auror had left for him right in the hallway in front of Room 101. The vague, lingering scent of cigarettes doesn’t take him back to the brownstone. It makes him think of Auror Yañez instead - grumbling all the way to the lower levels about _people that won’t even siddown, all of you are invincible aren’t you._

 

It would be a lie to say it didn’t make him roll his eyes in fondness.

 

Graves checks his watch, waiting for the clock to strike six-thirty pm. An as Credence’s dinner appears, he awaits just as expectantly for his--

 

Whatever sound the boy had made, it didn’t carry through the heavy wards. But Graves sees him arching his eyebrows, mouth slightly agape at the changes in his meal.

 

Steak and mashed potatoes are hardly gourmet foods, but they’re sure to taste better than anything else MACUSA has been feeding the boy. It’s kind of nice to see him hesitating between believing what lies on his nightstand, and reaching for the forest-green blanket that just materialized at his feet along with it.

 

The soft wool has warmth spells woven between the strands. It looks like it has been well-received when Credence, still half stunned, throws it over his shoulders. A last shiver runs down his thin body, and then he sighs in bone-deep relief.

 

Something uncoils in the boy, as he closes the blanket around himself. A knot between his eyebrows eases.

 

No doubt there had been more people noticing the thermostat spells hadn’t been high enough to keep Credence comfortable. But, whatever title Graves still keeps, it had came to him having the power to just bring the boy some goddamn covering to wrap himself with. It almost makes up for him not figuring out something he could give him as a pastime.

 

Snuggled up, Credence reaches for his dinner at last and murmurs what has to be a prayer before digging in. For once, he’s giving away a hint of how he could look like once he gets freed from this cell - less haunted, less unstable, _normal._

 

If he ever gets the boy to actually show some joy...

 

It’s weird that these are the things that give him hope, but as he pops open his flask and toasts silently towards the mirror, Graves finds himself smiling.

 

It becomes a dimmer quirk on his lips, but not entirely, when he hears the clicking steps of kitten heels coming down the hallway. By the time Queenie arrives next to him, it’s faded, but a certain softness remains.

 

This has been a good day. Not the easiest one by far, but _good._

 

Queenie Goldstein greets him like someone who’s glad to see him, he notices, and then she turns towards the reason she’s down here so late and claps her hand together, delighted.

 

Graves huffs, half pleased that she already seems to know what happened, half wishing _she doesn’t ask._ And takes another measured sip of the whiskey he rescued from what’s left of his cellar.

 

It’s no relief when she asks instead, amicably, “isn’t today your birthday, Director?”

 

Graves’ back goes tight enough to hurt.

 

Queenie is a merciful one, his recoil be damned. Her clear eyes allow him privacy, affixed on the boy on the other side of the warded glass as he runs his fingers on the edge of the blanket. Over and over…

 

They’re so long and thin. And a bit bent, Graves notes, and a rush of protectiveness wells up despite himself.

 

“Haven’t I told you to not snoop around in my head, Goldstein?”, he replies in the end. A question for a question is a rude thing to do, but she just blinks.

 

“Oh”, and it shows his words had taken her by surprise. “No, Mr. Graves, _Teenie_ told me. Though maybe I shouldn’t have--”

 

“It’s all fine”, Graves shakes his head. “I haven’t celebrated it in a while. Don’t like it.”

 

“That’s what she said too”, Queenie shrugs, still keeping things casual. “The other Aurors told her.”

 

Graves hums a noncommittal noise, and even though these lights on the wall and on the ceiling are powered by magic alone, he swears he can hear the soft buzzing of halogen. It goes on long enough he can feel it seeping into his marrow.

 

“They all care about you”, and just like that, she brings him back to the real world. “There’s a lot of people who care.”

 

Her soft voice makes the air vibrate, even after she stops talking.

 

_‘Graves._

_Happy Birthday._

_Talk to me.’_

 

Favors, trust, making good use of MACUSA’s rules through the loopholes. Theseus’ telegram from that morning, burning a hole in the pocket of his dress pants. Graves knows in his heart of hearts that even if her words weren’t true yet, maybe they would be - if he let them in.

 

“I’m not inconveniencing anyone before the trial is over, Goldstein”, he says, quieter than what he would’ve liked to. “But I’ll keep that in mind.”

 

He feels her trying to reach out into his thoughts… and then retreating, apologetic, before she can even touch his defenses.

 

Queenie laces her hands together again, fiddling with her thumbs before offering, “it’s nice that you brought Credence a present. You’re a good one, Mr. Graves.”

 

 _‘She’s so young’,_ he realizes, and tries to think back to what he knows of the sisters. Twenty-five and twenty-three? Both tried to look a bit older. They had raised each other, Tina had told him once.

 

Both tried their best, and sometimes hit bullseye, at acting wiser than their years, too.

 

“So are you, Miss Goldstein. And also bright”, he acquiesces with a small bow of his head. “It’s why I chose you to help.”

 

He doesn’t do empty praise - And Queenie knows it, he realizes, seeing her lightening up at his words.

 

He says his goodbyes, leaving her to enter Credence’s cell.

 

Graves is late. But he takes a detour towards MACUSA’s Communications Department to use the Floo before he goes back under the healers’ overbearing watch anyway. Two days to go, and he’ll have his trial. And if he does things right, the way he knows he can, it also means _two days to leave the hospital._

 

So he will. He swears it in front of the dancing green flames, dictating them a message he needs to dispatch before it grows so stale inside of him, it gets returned to sender.

 

_‘Thank you for the good wishes._

_I’m doing better._

_Don’t you dare feel guilty for this.’_

 

Anxiety can taste like relief, and vice versa. But all this time, he’s written to Theseus using his Woolworth Building address.

 

He sends the telegram signed with his new one, and hopes for the best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do know that your comments are appreciated and treasured, and keep this humble peddler afloat during every Writer's Block ;A;
> 
>  
> 
> ~~(Ask me questions about the characterrrrs. Ask me about the locations I've picked for thiiiings. I'm a sucker for historical accuracy and sdljsklg. NYC's Magical Map in 1926 is taking shape in my head along with everyone's identities and OH MY GOD GUYS, THIS HAS OCs NOW? #Excitebike).~~
> 
>  
> 
> You're all the best ♥


	6. A Blue Note (Going Lower)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seraphina herself had been kind enough to set up the wards during the afternoon, before his arrival, allowing his and only his signature to pass through them uninvited. There were protection charms, silencing charms, and she had made it Unplottable too. The apartment might have as well been a vault. 
> 
> Before Grindelwald, Graves would’ve set the wards himself.
> 
> Before Grindelwald, Graves would’ve Apparated inside.
> 
> \----
> 
> Or, the one with the trial.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a chapter heavy on the angst and on the flashbacks, y'all are warned. But on the plus side!
> 
> 1- This is the last 100% Graves-centric chapter: Credence moves in on the next one.  
> 2- There's a couple of Important Plot Points I'm really pumped to unveil in here.
> 
> Could've also been titled "MACUSA is sketchy af, and everyone is at least a bit morally grey" :'3 I really hope you like it! Thank you so much to everyone who's been cheering on me so far!

_ “So, Mr. Graves. Tell us how much did you know about Credence Barebone.” _

 

_ The question would’ve made him laugh. Was that seriously the very first thing they were asking of him? He had been insistent, but Mental Investigations had the capacity for nuance of a Reducto curse. _

 

_ He didn’t scoff. Because the Agents behind this disembodied, distorted voice asking wouldn’t have cared. And the potion rushing through his veins, well… _

 

_ “Just his surname.” _

 

_ It wouldn’t have let him lie. Not even through brief omission. _

 

 

 

Graves opens the door to his new apartment with the key. Stepping in, in absolute silence, he puts on the manual locks and leaves the cane in the ornate umbrella stand by the entrance. Steadying both hands, he hangs his coat on the rack. 

 

As soon as he takes it off, all the painstakingly reunited composure he had demonstrated during the day peels away with it, and he shudders, nausea engulfing him. He shrugs off the jacket, letting it fall to the floor. Not following its destiny is taking all of his focus, knuckles going white gripping the case of his mother’s piano.

 

All of the biggest furniture has been set, though not arranged to his liking just yet. The rest, the part of his life that hadn’t gone up in ashes, remains in boxes. The unfamiliarity of this apartment does nothing to stop the ringing alarms inside his head - but there’s things like  _ colors  _ and  _ scents  _ that hush them a little, and a heavy cloak of magic smothers the part of him that won’t stop whispering there’s enemies lurking past the Perpetual Phonograph by the corner.

 

Seraphina herself had been kind enough to set up the wards during the afternoon, before his arrival, allowing his and only his signature to pass through them uninvited. There were protection charms, silencing charms, and she had made it Unplottable too. The apartment might have as well been a vault. 

 

Before Grindelwald, Graves would’ve set the wards himself.

 

Before Grindelwald, Graves would’ve Apparated inside.

 

 

 

_ The buzz inside the Pentagram Office was frankly deafening, but he let it pass through him. He had been pulled out of his own closet, filthy and haggard. Malnourished, but not to the point of it putting his life at risk. Badly wounded, his torn skin showing the flesh below, yet none of the cuts or gashes bleeding, or infected. _ __  
  


_ They had found him restrained by his wrists and his ankles, both hands shattered. _ __  
  


_ And yet here he was. Keeping his posture tall and proud with all his might, in his best grey suit, as Congress debated whether he had been an accomplice to his own imprisonment. Graves had never been one for hysterics, but the temptation of screaming his mockery was there as time kept passing by and the representatives deliberated. Literally fighting to be heard over one another as if he wasn’t present, as if they hadn’t had about a week to discuss at their own damn leisure. _

 

_ “He can’t be trusted.” _

 

_ “He was a victim.” _

 

_ “Do you honestly believe Grindelwald would’ve left him alive if he hadn’t been cooperating?” _

 

_ “Maybe he wasn’t cooperating. Maybe he was forced.” _

 

_ “The entirety of MACUSA is at fault and we must make reparations. This was a gross violation of security protocols, nevermind the dignity of--” _

 

_ “It’s been repeated to death that, were Mr. Graves’ to be declared innocent, indeed reparations must be made.” _

 

_ “Do we have any certainty of the date of the kidnapping? How come nobody noticed Director Graves had been supplanted?” _

 

_ “Maybe there’s not enough of a difference.” _

 

_ Not a single muscle in Graves’ face moved but his hand tightened around the handle of the cane. His stare was affixed on the intricate MACUSA seal behind the president’s chair. He trusted the dim light of the room to keep the shine of sweat on his skin from showing. _

 

_ Seraphina’s voice cut across the room, an icy whip summoning quiet. _

 

_ “Enough! I will not stand for these kind of personal attacks. This isn’t what you have been summoned for.” _

 

_ It had been years since Graves and her had actually been close. Fondness remained but they had drifted apart, still colleagues but not best friends anymore. The kind of thing that happened to adults all the time and he accepted as a fact of life.  _

 

_ Right then, all he could feel was gratitude. _

 

_ He had never been good at tolerating dithering. _

 

 

 

The audience had lasted almost the entirety of the day. Graves collapses on the sofa, kicks off his brogues and leans back, hoping to find some comfort in the soft cushions, the smell of young leather. His living room spins, slowly enough to be unsettling. 

 

He had barely tolerated the hospital bed after two months of lying on hardwood. It doesn’t take long until the pliant surface of his seat gets under his skin. With a hiss, he slides down and sits on the floor. At least he’s tired enough he won’t have to take a damnable potion to fall asleep. The Healers had been pretty adamant on the drawbacks of long-term use.

 

What a good first day of being released from the hospital he has been having. Surely it would continue just like this.

 

Silence is moss and mold. It grows heavier, slimier, more predatory than all of the noise Graves had endured at the Pentagram Office. The Perpetual Phonograph is right on his line of sight, he knows there’s vinyl discs in one of the boxes labeled ‘Living Room’, accusingly waiting to be tidied into place. Anything that wasn’t this quiet white noise his brain is making would’ve been welcome, but right now he isn’t up to moving - and he has no desire to try and reach for his wandless magic.

 

For all Grindelwald despised the No-Maj and their methods, he had for sure taken enough pleasure on stomping on his hands as soon as Graves was bound. Unnecessary - the _Oppkroppen_ cuffs around his wrists, the chains he had conjured around Graves’ ankles, they had already been charmed to suppress a hum that had been background white noise inside his body for as long as he could remember. 

 

He looks at both of them now, scrutinizing the veins and the familiar freckles, and the new scars. His right hand, the healers had been able to put it back together with fair ease. His left one--

 

His left hand is his left hand.

 

Graves examines their tremor, too.

 

 

 

_ “I’m fairly certain I can put a stop to this nonsense”, he said loud and clear, as soon as he was finally given a turn. His words didn’t waver. _

 

_ Good. _

 

_ “As a Director of Magical Security, I would’ve never allowed such a high-profile case to come to a verdict with evidence as inconclusive as this one. Let’s not fool ourselves. It’s fragmented, and weak, and most of it comes from Grindelwald’s testimony, as well as mine,” Graves allowed, stern face and sterner voice. “Ladies, gentlemen, you’ve had plenty of time to debate this. I’m acquainted with how long an investigation might take, but at the same time, I have no intention to spend the rest of my recovery in temporary custody until Congress makes up their minds.” _

 

_ There was an echo of steel in him. It wasn’t his anymore, but he remembered it, and right now that was all he needed. _

 

_ “Let’s get over with it. Bring the Veritaserum, will you?” _

 

_ There was a gasp, somewhere. It wasn’t a collective one. The rest of the assembly laid stunned. _

 

_ “You haven’t been convicted yet, Director Graves”, said President Picquery, rising from her seat. Her beautiful face was a stone mask. “Veritaserum is for the convicted. It’s not meant to be used on someone who is still a citizen of the United States, with their full rights in place.” _

 

_ Graves had crystal clarity on what kind of prisoner that potion was usually given to, and under which circumstances of captivity. He had had to give the order personally, more than once. _

 

_ “Priori Incantatem brought echoes of the Imperius Curse in both our wands. But Grindelwald was moved to a Max Security cell over a thousand miles away from here yesterday. Any Imperius curse coming from him would’ve been cut by now, leaving me free of its influence. I’m well aware of the implications of Veritaserum, and I assure you - I don’t care.” _

 

_ For such a reserved man, he had always had a bit of flair for performance when the situation called for it. _

 

_ It wasn’t his anymore, either. But he could slip it on and wear it. _

 

_ At least Grindelwald hadn’t forgotten to give him back his vision after their last session. The look on Seraphina’s face was priceless. _

 

 

 

Making his back ramrod straight like before, his words just as sharp as they used to be, it had depleted his last reserves of spirit. Keeping it up in front of Credence, to visit him after the audience, would’ve meant to use even the fumes of it, and then, there were the Goldstein sisters to consider.

 

He’d tell the boy the good news tomorrow. Tomorrow would surely be a better day.

 

(Would this get him to smile? Shift the quiet insanity off that pale face, into something  _ softer? _ )

 

December is coming to an end. The sun outside, beyond the thick cover of rain clouds, grows dimmer and goes lower.

 

(Would this be a mistake to finish ruining them both?)

 

There’s a knot choking Graves’ throat, dense and tight like taut rope. His eyes sting. Anxiety and anguish slowly fill him to a boiling point. Nobody is looking at him right now but he bites it back, swallows it like he has always done, the way he learnt as a child. And even if for a moment it feels like the pressure inside might kill him, he breathes. Gets it under control.

 

Yes. Good.

 

His achievement leaves him on the verge of throwing up and makes his left arm throb in a flash of pain. He holds onto it, heat radiating to his palm through the fine cotton of his shirt.

 

Fractal lines expand on a jagged scar that goes from his shoulder to his knuckles. Over the fabric nothing appears out of the ordinary, but the skin below looks as if lightning itself had struck him, scrambling the tissue and the nerves inside beyond repair. The healers had shaken their heads at it, had quietly informed Graves his arm would work properly, once it was out of the cast. But they wouldn’t be able to make the pulsing ache settling bone-deep inside go away.

 

Magic this dark, they said, could leave permanent shards inside of someone. It would flare and recede unpredictably. There was no potion potent enough to dull it when it was at its worst. He was actually lucky he had been able to keep the limb at all.

 

This is what he gets for parrying to his right.

 

Graves tries to make a list inside his head. Tasks he has to complete, things he has to tidy up, items to buy. But it hurts and he’s tired, and those words are so much of an understatement he feels like laughing for the second time that day. He strangles it down, too, until reality itself feels feeble and foggy. Images beyond thick glass, the unfamiliar apartment foreign. Illusory.

 

He’ll deal with the pain later. Tomorrow. Potions wouldn’t work, maybe, but Graves had lived and died and then woken up to do it all over again in the Great War trenches. The No-Maj had inventions for everything.

 

 

 

_ “Did he coerce you?” _ __  
  


_ “No. He tried, but I wouldn’t bend.” _

_  
_ _ “Did he convince you?” _

 

_ “No. He tried, but he disgusts me. His ideology is disgusting. It’s everything I’ve worked against.” _

 

_ “Even his stance on the Rappaport Law?” _

 

_ “I’ve upheld it. All of my career, MACUSA, the Irregulars at the Great War.” _

 

_ “‘Upheld it’. I see. Impeccable service, then, Mr. Graves. Did he use Unforgivables on you?” _

 

_ “Imperius. Crucio.” _

 

_ “Tell me about Imperius. Did you break through those curses?” _

 

_ “Every time until he stopped.” _

 

_ “Did he tell you why he stopped insisting? Give me his words. Exact, if you can.” _

 

_ “... ‘Guess there’s no finesse in keeping you Imperiused’, he said. ‘You know what happens to those who resist the curse until it breaks them, Percival - They have the unfortunate tendency to lose their minds. Let’s keep that unharmed, shall we?’” _

 

_ “... Why did he need your mind?” _

 

_ “Legilimency. It was faster and simpler to keep my thoughts on a Pensieve for easy access than making me talk. Only got the bare minimum at the beginning, on the first weekend. Enough to pass. But he kept at it. Days. Weeks. Perfected his disguise.” _

 

_ “What about Crucio?” _

 

_ “He used it. But not exclusively. He was trying to keep me sane and keep me alive.” _

 

_ “Did he plan to keep using you?” _

 

_ “No… No… As soon as he found the Obscurial he was looking for, he was going to dispose of me.” _

 

_ “I see, Mr. Graves.” _

 

_ “You see.” _

 

_ “We do. So tell us again about this church.” _

  
  


 

Sometime after night finishes falling, after he’s done staring into nothingness at the rhythm of the grandfather clock, Graves drifts away right there on the floor, sprawled with his back resting on the sofa.

 

Sometime after midnight, he slips and falls on his left side. Drained in every sense, he doesn’t even notice.

 

Sometime after 3am, Graves wakes up to agony.

 

There’s nobody in the apartment to hear him scream and, amidst the red haze of pain tearing his arm with an open flame, he’s glad for that small mercy.

 

Wracked by violent shivers, he rolls over until he’s on his back and writhes, arching, cradling the pierced limb against his body. It hasn’t been that bad since the third night in the hospital, when the invisible knives carving at him had woken him up from his prolonged unconsciousness. He pants and does his best to sit up, seeking oxygen.

 

He needs to breathe. If he could control that, he would be able to toughen it up.

 

Graves hauls himself in a single movement until his back hits the sofa with a noiseless thud. The resulting spasm makes white spots dance in his vision, makes him wish for anything, anything to  _ make it stop. Please. Please make it stop. _

 

He’s been living alone even before leaving Graves Manor for the City. He has no potions, his entire body is crying out as he struggles for calm and silence _ , and please. Please, anything _ . 

 

He retches, and when he opens his eyes again, he finds at his side a bottle of whiskey, summoned from the case he had brought for his new cellar.

 

This time his quiet, bitter laughter breaks through the stillness of the living room.

 

This very morning he had failed to call upon him his cufflinks, unable to remember where had he left the bags he’d brought from Mercury Street. Wandless first. Then with the wand, wordless. Then verbally. Until his repeated attempts had left him on the verge of being late to Woolworth, for the first time since he had been promoted from Junior Auror, and the sheer stress of it had jogged his memory enough to find them.

 

The newfound anger inside of him had chilled the windows of his office right in front of Tina Goldstein, Arcenaux and Blake had surely notice the wand dead in his fingers, the Healers sworn to secrecy at the Jones had known even how many times he breathed every night.

 

There used to be nothing worse than failing in his book, falling so low someone else would pity him. At least there’s no witnesses this time.

 

All of him is the facade he’s being allowed to keep. He hates that he’s grateful. 

  
  


 

_ Vergil Palmer and Canopus Yañez escorted him back to the courtroom, one on each side. They didn’t dare to look at him, and even less to say a word - the situation probably as aberrant for them as it was for Graves. They were Senior Aurors, in charge of their own divisions and squads. They had risen through the ranks along him, had fought under his orders in innumerable raids. _

 

_ They sat him right in the middle of the pentagram, once again. Seraphina stood, regal. Graves sprawled in the wooden chair, stabbed his now clear gaze on her, all level-headed and awaiting. _

 

_ “Percival Gondolphus Graves, you’ll probably be happy to know you’ve been acquitted. This court dismisses the criminal charges of treason, sedition, and leaking of sensitive governmental information against your person. You’re free to leave now.” _ __  
  


_ It was a less formal speech than it should have been. But he valued it now. He had been suspected for weeks, the way his colleagues and subordinates had never suspected the imposter. Distrust followed him every time he stepped inside of headquarters. Seraphina Picquery relaxing her etiquette for him felt like the kind of greeting he should’ve had from the start. _

_  
_ _ “Thank you, Madam President, members of the jury. I appreciate it.” _

 

_ “You’re also on a mandatory leave, starting from today. I don’t want to see you in this building until June 1st, Mr. Graves, and I do hope you comply this time. As for your request on the destiny of Mr. Barebone…” _

 

_ Not missing a beat, “I’m not leaving him here to rot in the dungeons.” _

 

_ “You’ve made that plenty clear. After careful deliberation, we’ve decided to concede Mr. Barebone partial citizenship, on probation, and subject to change if the conditions were to be broken.” _

 

_ “Go on. I’m listening.” _

 

_ Seraphina sighed, and in that moment, Graves could finally spot the exhaustion settled all over her, mirroring his own. Tracing faint lines under her eyes, around her lips. This clusterfuck of an incident, the subsequent scandal, it was clear her administration had come dangerously close to being toppled.  _

 

_ The tension in the room, the silent, open hostility of so many mages in the room as she took her pause and shuffled her papers-- _

 

_ Graves realized in an instant, the reparation they were going to offer him was letting him get away with something he otherwise wouldn’t. Nothing more, nothing less. It was even offensive, but he’d take it. _

 

_ Hell. He was going to take whatever he could get. _

 

_ “You’re going to take him in as his legal guardian. Due to the nature of his upbringing and the parasite inhabiting him, he cannot be considered an adult until his magical education is complete and he proves the Obscurus is under his control. You’re also to teach him, or failing this, you’re to provide him with an adequate tutor. His ventures to the outside world will be limited to a monthly quota. We’re informing you of said quota as soon as we reach a consensus - the full document with the clauses will be available for you tomorrow morning. And, Mr. Graves--” _

 

_ There was a pause. Graves stole it away. _

 

_ “I’ve always trusted you to leave the worst part for the end, Madame President.” _

 

_ Anyone else wouldn’t have noticed the repressed snort of laughter coming from her, but he rested assured for a single second  _

 

_ “If he ever shows even a hint of losing himself to the parasite again, you’re contractually obligated to kill him on sight. I believe you’re the most qualified among us to either terminate the Obscurus should the need arise, or stall him while backup arrives.” _

 

_ He had expected this much. All in all, the situation had been satisfactorily resolved on his favor. And so, Graves reunited the last shreds of cockiness inside of him, pulled the threads and smirkes. Just a little, a shadow of his old self solid enough to fool absolutely every official in the room. _

 

_ “Should I swear it on the journal of old Gondolphus?” _

 

_ Seraphina caught him later, as he packed the items from his office he was going to need into his briefcase. The Extension Charm inside was worn, he noticed, but it’d hold until he got home. _

 

_ He turned around to greet her, and the moved smile he found on her face lodged something inside his chest. Nailed it deeper when she fucking hugged him, as they hadn’t done since graduating from Seventh Year. _

 

_ It was paralyzing. _

 

_ It terrified him, the way he melted into her touch without meaning to, after two months of isolation inside of a box, and weeks at a hospital, and a whole tortuous judicial process wherein nobody had dared to quite get close. _

 

_ A least a decade of pushing everyone away, to top it off as well. _

 

_ “Graves… it’s so good to know you’re alive”, she said. Her voice wavered, her mask slipped. Just a little bit. “It’s so good to know you’re alright.” _

 

_ They both knew it wasn’t true. They both knew they’d have to talk, and soon, to make real plans that weren’t based on sparing what was left of his pride. _

 

_ Slowly letting go of her, voice made soft, he replied. _

 

_ “I am”, and he projected a calm he didn’t really feel. “I’m glad too, Sera.” _

  
  


 

It’s five in the morning, and Graves hasn’t been this drunk since the first time he had lost an Auror in the field. The entire bottle, downed right from the neck, lies empty and horizontal next to him. Probably a good thing it had slipped from his fingers on the last third, pouring the rest over the expensive parquet. Dying now would’ve been unbecoming.

 

But it’s time he had a breakdown, he tells to himself. He hadn’t allowed himself a proper one yet, and it’s such a relief to know there are no witnesses. The pain in his arm has subsided, not quite a dull ache, but to the point it’s the whiskey that’s blocking him from thinking straight instead of undiluted physical torture.

 

It’s weakness, and he isn’t used to weakness of any kind. But he deserves this, he silently repeats, stumbling with words and concepts slurred even inside his own mind. He has earned it.

 

Gradually, faltering, he manages to lift himself enough to stagger back on the sofa. Climbing it almost, all grace foregone. He’s next to unconscious, but by now he knows by heart he can’t ever sleep on his left side again. Once again, it’s like the smooth surface of the cushions swallows him whole, alcohol pinning him to it with the weight of a thousand bricks. But the feeling has evolved into something earthy, grounding. The pressure is welcome for once.

 

He thinks, he can’t permit himself a moment like this one again. Vulnerability isn’t like him. It had been forbidden to him since he had been a child young enough that Ilvermorny was still a faraway dream.

  
  


 

_ “So you would’ve risked Senior Auror Blake’s protege to keep this under wraps, Director?” _

 

_ “She was one of mine by then. I had been thinking about Goldstein’s promotion. Couldn’t have predicted she’d blow her cover like she did.” _

 

_ “We all remember the scandal. Bit of a loose canon, that Auror Goldstein.” _

 

_ “Wand Permits was the most I could do so she wouldn’t get thrown out. The rest didn’t matter after the Obliviations. They were all No-Maj, and the Barebone woman had no children by blood. No Scourers.” _

 

_ “And you closed the case.” _

 

_ “A No-Maj fringe cult is out of my jurisdiction. I had no reason to care.” _

  
  


 

The room spins again, quicker. But this time is pleasant. Warm. It seeps into his bones.

 

He thinks, Credence is being released a week later, directly into his home. Reparations came late by definition. So many things to do, so many things to teach him - Would they get him to smile?

 

(Would  _ he?) _

 

So many things Graves himself has to learn, too, for the sake of the boy. And for their cohabitation. To keep it peaceful, productive - to stay busy, sane, capable of taking back the place he gave his life for, and isn’t he glad he took at least this night off, then?

 

January 7th. Graves has to be whole enough by then.

 

So he would.

  
  


 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Annnd scene. There's no recovery without a relapse or two, alright? ;A;
> 
> My dudes ♥ Your support means the world to me, and comments are my literal lifeblood. "Extra Kudos" are welcome. "HOW DARE YOU!!", and similar exclamations of despair are welcome with gleeful, delighted cackling. ~~And if you want to interrogate me about anything about the story or characters themselves... who knows 8) I might reply with a straight answer~~~
> 
> Come find me at [my tumblr!](fractalspaces.tumblr.com) ♥ ♥ ♥


	7. Play By Ear (And Set The Standard)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _'My ward'. 'Living here'._ It's so daunting all of a sudden. Graves hasn't shared his space with someone else since he came back to New York City after the War; and Credence is a wreck. A wreck he barely knows. But then again-- isn't the same for himself as well?
> 
> “Welcome", he says, gathering resolve so his voice sounds as sure and safe as possible. "Please, go in.”
> 
> \----
> 
> Wherein no amount of rehearsal and planning beats honest interaction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHAHAH, I'm so sorry for taking so long to post this 8'D Perfectionism is the enemy, my dudes. I finished this, what, past Sunday? And I've been just polishing the thing ever since.
> 
> I dearly, dearly hope y'all enjoy this chapter, and that it meets the expectations you might have had about _Credence moving in with Graves._ Love you, everyone ♥ 
> 
> (This chapter has been brought to you by Percival “totally nailing it” Graves. You go, Mr. Graves.)

Despite the coat Graves had lent him, Credence doesn’t stop shivering all the way to the apartment, silent and bereft of expression in the back of the taxi. The almost permanent curve to his spine already makes him smaller than he is - huddled like this, it’s like he wants to make himself disappear.

 

The sun outside shines with a lackluster glow. This is supposed to be the coldest winter in several years, and yet Graves is stubbornly holding onto the bit of joy that  _ being able to see a blue sky  _ had given him upon waking up. It had felt like the ice on the streets would thaw some day in the future, and several other kinds of metaphor the feeling had chosen for itself.

 

He knows it can’t be the temperature what is making Credence shake. He’d gotten a passable amount of control back with his magic, he’d dared to drape a silent  _ Tepeo _ around the boy’s too-thin shoulders as soon as they’d climbed into this car.

 

The spell had came out good enough  _ he _ could feel it warming up his side.

 

He pays, and helps Credence out of the vehicle. He's left the cane at home, and the ache in his arm has remained a low thrum he can ignore; so he takes the small backpack with the boy's belongings as well. The building looms over them with the beautiful straight lines that had been Graves’ first indication he’d like the place - it opens with two evergreen bushes on both sides of a golden door, and by the grace of a doorman. 

 

Credence stares at it all, not comforted one bit by the sight. And Graves, who by now has more or less realized how wild of a change of luck this all might be, doesn’t tell him anything, but offers him his arm as he greets,

 

“Good morning, Arthur. How are you? Were you told about my ward coming to live here?”

 

“We all were, Mr. Graves”, the man replies, all smiles, and Graves is stupidly  _ grateful  _ for being given the best possible answer when Credence-- doesn’t take his arm. But goes close enough it’s undeniable he’s the aforementioned.

 

He keeps the introduction as brief as good manners would allow for Credence’s sake;  Arthur gives them a bit of a bow and welcomes them in. The concierge isn’t around to stop them for a chat, and Seraphina had gone and modified the entirety of how the elevator worked just so the car opened empty when it was him the one requesting it.

 

Plenty of time to mull about how unfamiliar all these words had been on his tongue. They had left an aftertaste he still can’t define.

 

_ My ward. Living here. _

 

It’s different, this on-site realization of  _ I’m doing this.  _ Daunting in a way he hadn’t quite measured before, too busy in the previous weeks with the finality of his resolution. So many things to get ready, how in the world would’ve he had the time, or the energy, to entertain his doubts?

 

_ ‘You aren’t much of a family man, sir.’ _

 

But he’d try. He’d already started. He’d  _ rehearsed _ for today, goddammit.

 

The elevator ride spreads itself through time in a silence broken only by the sound of the gears moving them far up. Graves examines both of them in the mirror, avoiding both the reflection of his own face and settling his gaze into Credence’s.

 

Fear notwithstanding, the boy cuts a better figure already, honest.

 

Back in the Evidence Room past Monday, Graves had taken a look at the meager personal possessions the Investigations team had retrieved from the church, and had felt an echo of chill at the threadbare rags Mary Lou Barebone had made him wear even under heavy snow. Graves’ clothes are big on his starved figure, but for a better-fitted wardrobe they’d have to wait, and they were warm.

 

He doesn’t want to think what it says of him, that he didn’t think of just eyeballing a size to buy some new clothes off a No-Maj rack. He cares, but he’s new of what it consists of - right when he’d chosen what to bring,  _ ‘caring’  _ had meant that he’d rather not overwhelm the boy by bringing him any close to Mercury Strip before he’d had at least a couple of weeks to settle.

 

MACUSA’s food at least made him a bit less sallow. He’d be a handsome young man with some decent care, probably - the pinker skin and slowly growing hair hint at something like that for the future.

 

Graves fiddles with the leather strap of the absurdly light backpack, frowning. He's being frivolous here, he does know there’s still no telling about the state of the boy's mind. Would he adapt?

 

Not much had remained from Credence’s previous life. Packing had been shorter and harder than he’d thought. The soft green blanket Graves had given him had been the first thing to go inside his luggage. And then--

 

He’d doubted from the start about the boy’s Bible, reminder of bad times and the kind of object Graves’ family hadn’t been fond of since Salem. He’d kept it in the end, once he’d noticed sections and sections of it carefully underlined with what could’ve only been the tip of a fingernail - _it had to have_ _mattered_ , he’d told himself. 

 

Credence had so little, that would’ve been it.

 

Except two nights ago, Arcenaux had told him, a last team of Aurors had been on-site to close the investigation on the New Salemers, and one of them had felt a loose floorboard under his foot.

 

Excavated between wooden beams and loose plaster, there had been a pocket.

 

It hid a poorly-bound notebook made of discarded, badly printed pamphlets. The covers were of cardboard, it was held all together with twine - Under the clinical lights of the Evidence Room, Graves had dropped it like the too-private thing it was at the sight of chickenscratch notes, and a pretty decent doodle of a little girl.

 

The report by his side had listed:

 

_ “Three (3) bitten, stubby pencils; five (5) small, copper coins in No-Maj currency; a pair of soft woolen gloves admitted to have been gifted by Auror Goldstein, (ref. 045-B, date September 24th, 1926).” _

 

All of it had been swiftly cleared for retrieval by the Research Department, and Graves had made a mental note to send Darius a bottle of something strong, preferentially Southern. Back in his day he would’ve never, but if they hadn’t let him take the things he might have-- 

 

_ Credence had so little. That was all of it. _

 

Because, the destiny of his belt had been the last problem Graves had had to deal with.

 

His magic came and went and flared unbidden. Movement, Frost, and Flame. And once they had told him that was the belt from the reports, Graves had had to put out the fire he had set the accursed thing on.   
  


He’d taken his time getting a glass of water from a nearby cooler to pour over the mess. Letting it burn would’ve been worth the acrid smell of ruined leather sticking to his throat, satisfactory in the same way throwing a punch and feeling a crack of bone could set his body alight.

 

But it had never been his call to make. He hadn’t had a chance to ask the boy, and even if he had--

 

The belt had remained in one of the drawers at the Evidence Room. Graves had loved the Woolworth Building, but Grindelwald had desecrated its hallways for him. He wouldn't mind if it outright  _ haunted  _ the place.

 

Right next to him, it’s still Friday, December the 7th. Credence, very politely, coughs and fidgets a little, bringing him back into the present.

 

The elevator had stopped ascending already, Magic knew when.

 

The sting of shame makes Graves deepen the scowl he’d fallen into, until he realizes who’s witnessing it. Mortification hitting a point wherein he  _ has _ to act, he sighs, and puts on the severe, calm expression that everyone quickly learns is his Normal.

 

“Don’t you worry, boy”, he offers, and waves the door open on a whim. A show of control for himself too, probably - To his surprise, his magic obeys without a flaw. “There’s a lot in my head, that’s all.”

 

Credence nods, accepting the answer. He curves his spine again, but as Graves leads him down the hallway, he can swear he can feel the boy’s eyes sticking his nape.

 

The new apartment still smells foreign, and the warm sterile scent of new leather and new wood from the furniture has kept Graves on edge. He _has_ been trying to arrange it to his liking, but it's barely been a week since he settled in - And yet today he's standing right outside with-- well.

 

_ My ward. Living here. _

 

It's so daunting all of a sudden.

 

He hasn't shared his space with someone else since he came back to New York City after the War.

 

_ ‘Come on, Perce! Come live with me in London!’ _

 

He smothers the sudden flash of copper by the corner of his eye by opening the door. The mechanical action of turning the key almost does the trick, still so unfamiliar. The wards would need to get used to Credence’s unpredictable, darkened signature for a few days, which is another good reason to not take him out so soon, and even then, there’s no governmental authorization for him to use the Floo on his own yet. And there was going to be an even longer time before Graves can teach him to Apparate.

  
Or before Graves can Apparate again. That too.

 

Credence stands by his side by the doorway, and doesn’t go in at his silent gesture, ushering him inside, and  _ there they are, about to settle into some shared living space, and.  _ Honestly, he had finished unpacking already and yet he keeps finding the damnedest--  that Perpetual Phonograph is right there on his line of sight. Graves reminds himself he should be putting it in another corner. There had to be a better place.

 

He swallows hard and tries his best to not get stuck on the memory of the things that Phonograph had witnessed. 

 

He’d rehearsed for this moment, damn it all. And the problem is still that he  _ doesn’t do this. _ This  _ living with other people.  _

 

Wetting his dry lips with the tip of his tongue, he gathers his resolve so his voice sounds as sure and safe as it possibly can and goes, “welcome. Please, go in.”

 

Credence is a wreck. A wreck he barely knows. But then again-- isn't the same for Graves himself as well?

 

Maybe he should get them matching clothes.

 

“This is your home now", and he makes emphasis on the present time of it again because he damn well knows how hollow it'd ring otherwise.

 

He could, after all, relate.

 

And the boy looks conflicted, struggling to get words out, and the very first words he has said since they left the Woolworth Building come with a frown - shoulders slumped and gaze nailed to the parquet floor:

 

_ “Why?” _

 

Graves can feel the wary chill of it all the way through his shoes.

 

This boy has been lied to by a man with his face. It’s still weird to think of the scar across his eye as a good thing, but if it’s this the thing that will set him apart…

 

“Child, look at me”, and maybe it’s too cryptic. Maybe he should be able to speak of his own damage, the reason of the kinship he feels towards Credence Barebone - a boy who otherwise has nothing in common with him.

 

But Credence tilts his head to focus first on one side of Graves’ face, and then the other. And fidgets with the cuffs of his sweater, and nods.

 

“I understand, sir”, he says, with the sound of someone who’s only replying out loud because he has been taught to.

 

Graves knows he does. He also wishes he knew why he feels such an overwhelming urge to lock himself in his room and drink until he forgets the reason he started. And so, he says nothing, and hides his scarred, now outright hurting left hand behind his back until he notices, Credence Barebone in front of him is still waiting for the next cue.

 

“Follow me”, he sighs. “I’ll show you around. And let’s draw up some guidelines, shall we?”

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

_ The boy looked at the simple clothes Graves was laying down in front of him as if they were cursed. The white of Credence’s scrubs did nothing to make him look less like a spectre there to haunt him, and he was pretty sure that’s exactly what would’ve happened, had MACUSA been successful in their little attempt. _

 

_ They were to leave the building in forty-five, sixty minutes. He had told him he was taking him in a week ago, and hadn’t that taken him a long time to fix back then, too. How come he still had to fight Credence for every inch of the personhood he kept rejecting? _

 

_ "Mr. Graves”, the boy said, and Mercy Lewis could he sound cold… “You don't know me." _ __  
  


_ If the only weapon Graves had against distrust was sheer stubbornness, then so be it. _

_  
_ _ "No", he admitted, with zero adornment. "And it's a mutual thing." _

 

_ Credence seemed to curve himself, back bending like a question mark. And Graves, he didn’t really do affection, wasn't sure of how gently he should try to treat this boy or not - future roommate, fellow hostage, broken. _

 

_ "But I do want to", he added, vying for clarity. "Get to know you." _

 

_ Some of the weight uncoiled from Credence's shoulders, and Graves took another mental note. _

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

The room is bright and airy, the huge windows look upon Central Park. He'd done his best to not go overboard with it, to allow Credence the new freedom of _making a space his own_ , but there’s a big bed and its nightstand, there’s a closet and a desk. The clear colors of the wood and the heavy, bottle-green curtains, Graves had picked them himself. They suit the light cream of the wallpaper. He'd never actually set foot there, but this had been his idea of _spiting_ what he knew of the dark greyness of Pike Street.

__

 

He sets the backpack by the pillows. Watches Credence lean across the threshold, doing his best to not be overwhelmed for a moment or two, and then go back to his expressionless mask, betrayed only by his shaky legs.

 

“Mr. Graves…” he starts, but Graves doesn’t let him.

 

“It’s yours.” And it’s petulant, but maybe it’s the one way Credence won’t fight him in this. “You can do whatever you like with it, but I’ll be very offended if you don’t accept it in the first place.”

 

“It’s too nice”, Credence replies, quiet. “I haven’t earned this.”

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

_ The boy’s hands were dissolving into gravel, dark sand, ashes. Credence kept his eyes closed as the wards rang, silent and yet deep like the rattle of war drums, but Graves had read what he'd see if they were open. Forgetting all about his leave, he barked an order to the Aurors already taking position by the door, and outside in the hallway. _

 

_ The boy turned to face them with a predator’s coil and showing teeth, and well, then.  _

 

_ “Wands down! Down, I said!”, he snarled and the fact they still listened wasn’t the only mystery happening in this room. Escalating a conflict like this, the fuck had been these rookies taught? _

 

_ Maybe he should’ve waited until the last possible second to drop the news, and not the next morning after that petty run-in with Congress. There was no hint of amber on those fogged eyes, and it had happened so quickly, too. _

 

_ “Why? Why are you doing this?”, and the chill in the questions disturbed Graves. This wasn’t the way he knew anger - as something loud, all yelling and sweeping gestures. Credence’s was barely a whisper, but with the Obscurus manifesting, it might as well have been thunder. _

 

_ Barely having had enough time for the Hangover Cure to kick in, Graves didn’t have the patience for this - but he had to summon some from his reserves. _

 

_ This was the one way he had to help Credence Barebone.  _

 

_ “Because I want to”, he stated, an unmovable object. And his arm ached, and if he threw away his walking stick, it was to stand straighter. Half the Department of Magical Security had to be in a state of alert by then. _

 

_ It was as if Credence had noticed the Obscurus escaping from his fingertips for the first time. He stared at them, and his lack of an expression spoke of surprise at most. But his movements immediately stiffened. Mechanically, he tore himself away from where he was and went to the nightstand, where a case with opaque tin vials awaited. _

 

_ Graves saw him open one with unsteady hands, drink, and take deep breaths before he sat down. His own pulse had spiked at this. From the beginning, he’d sworn the boy he wouldn’t lie to him, and now… he had to wait for a reply. _

 

_ Shaking his head, Credence just said, warmer and rawer this time, “don’t mock me, sir.” _

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

“It’s not about  _ earning _ ”, Graves says. “But if you want to think of it that way, then know you should’ve never lived where you did. MACUSA owes you.”

 

_ ‘Like they owe me’,  _ he doesn’t add, and  _ fuck.  _ He wishes he could come back to work soon, to not keep stewing in what it does to him that  _ nobody noticed. _

 

Distantly, he can hear the dragging crack of grinding teeth. It startles him out of his reverie to realize it’s Credence, curved upon himself, stone-faced all over again, as if--

 

He’d rehearsed for this day. It was never going to be enough.

 

Mercy Lewis, he isn’t fit to do this. 

 

Graves scrambles. He puts an effort to soften his voice, soften  _ himself _ , and offers a “too blunt?”

 

The answer he gets is silence.

 

“... I’m sorry”, he tries again, so sincere Credence raises his gaze enough to stare at him from under hooded eyes. Immobile for so long Graves is sure now, the boy has turned into marble just so he doesn’t have to reply.

 

Should he leave?

 

Credence, bless him, sighs. He takes the backpack and sets it on the desk, every step of it a hesitation, and that’s when he spots--

 

“Mr. Graves?”, he asks all careful.

 

There’s a journal there, bound in reddish leather. It has a latch, the pages shift from lined to blank.

 

“Yours too”, he says, and dares to close some of the distance between them. “Once you write your name on the first page, it’ll open just for you.”

 

Credence goes wide-eyed, and the good thing about his bafflement is, it gives Graves time to banish whatever he had been on the verge of getting lost on. He brushes the boy’s arm in something like a pat, barely, before something quirks at the corners of those lips, and--

 

That has to be the the faintest, most exhausted, most  _ unpracticed  _ smile Graves has ever seen. And he welcomes the flood of  _ relief _ it brings like a balm against the future.

 

“Thank you, sir”, the boy says, and dares to loosen up beneath his touch. Between the rush of blood suddenly giving color to his face, and the shy twinkle in his eyes, Graves could even swear he looks  _ more alive. _

 

“Unpack”, he says, and retires his hand only then. It’s too gentle to be an order.. “I’ll show you the library, and then we can see what can be done about lunch.”

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

_ “It was you”, the boy said, and Graves - who used to prize himself in his ability to read other people off their facial expressions alone, who had stared down at countless criminals from the other side of an interrogation room, felt laid bare and overwhelmed by those three words. _

 

_ “I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific”, he replied, cautious. Was he upsetting Credence Barebone again? They didn’t have the time for a crisis, nor MACUSA’s patience. _

 

_ They should’ve been on their way out already. _

_  
_ _ “... It was you”, Credence repeated instead. Awkward, retreating into himself, showing vulnerability. “The steak. And the blanket.” _

 

_ He looked too shocked to add anything else. _

 

_ What he did was standing up, and picking up the clothes Graves had brought him. _

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

It’s during his grand tour of the apartment that Graves spots the fireplace had at some point spat out mail he’d be leaving for later, after Credence and him had parted ways so the boy could get used to his room. Only two senders could’ve found him on this address anyway.

 

He finds out it’s a decently-sized, rattling box wrapped in brown paper with a note in Sera’s stylized cursive,  _ “we’re sending you Credence’s medication”  _ stuck to the top. And a Floo Telegraph from Theseus he knows on sight will get equally adhered to his memory:

 

_ “Graves. _

_ Strongly worded letter to follow. _

_ (Best of luck today old friend)” _

 

When Graves comes back from the deli, bringing the makings for sandwiches and some milk, he can see Credence doing his best to look as if he hadn’t been out of his room for starters, and far too close to the Perpetual Phonograph. He had surprised himself by huffing a half-laugh and reassuring him as he closed the door with a hip, leaving the cane by the umbrella stand afterwards. He isn’t going to give the boy time to feel terrible about things.

 

“Come here. Let me teach you to use it.”

 

Something about it all feels like he’d finally been given permission to try _.  _ No promises of succeeding, fully knowing this is unfamiliar territory.

 

_ My ward. Living here. Your home now. _

 

Mercy Lewis, this is daunting. And Credence is shaking his head, and stepping a little further away from the Phonograph. But he isn’t cringing in fear, nor in anger.

 

There’d been another quick flash of quirked lips softening his face. 

 

Graves would take it as a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, SO SORRY FOR THE WAIT. Really TwT I'd... well, I'd deserve if nobody is reading anymore, tbh, but please let me know via comment that you're still here? I really really love getting your opinions and tbh getting a noti is the best part of my day, ahaha :'3
> 
> I'll take a brief brief moment to also plug my other ongoing multichapter fic here! [Lines of Copper, Lines of Black](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15642546) is an AU that explores what would've happened if Credence had chosen to go with Grindelwald anyway, and why is Theseus Scamander so invested in saving him from it. It has damaged people unlikely finding and healing each other, with slow burn and my most honest promise of a happy ending to make all the angst worth it. H/C all the way, baby! I'd matter a lot to me if you took a look at it ;3
> 
> \---
> 
> Come find me at my [tumblr!](fractalspaces.tumblr.com) ♥ ♥ ♥


	8. (The Accidental) Bar-Line Shift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graves hadn’t realized the first song would be so full of commiseration, but then again, he’d picked an album of blues. Credence is still more important - his attention is set on the boy, waiting for a reaction, and oh.
> 
>  _Raised eyebrows, dry lips slightly parted. The tip of his tongue dampening them both, before he bites on the lower one._ It’s… Open curiosity. That’s a new expression, alright; and then Credence hides again as soon as he notices he’s being watched.
> 
> \----
> 
> Graves isn't used to communicating clearly. It takes a Miracle to make it work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh wow. Where do I even begin.
> 
> No, this fic was never abandoned. But the Real Life bowled me over from... August, 'till now? And I'm kind of begging to the cosmos there's still people around to read this update, tbh. Wouldn't blame y'all. So many things can change in five months.
> 
> (I'm quitting my job! Because my health quit _me_ |DDD I liked to work there, but seriously. Fingers crossed so this means more time and energy to write a little more, a little better)
> 
> So... Have a new chapter. I made it extra long, and I hope it's worth the wait. Shotout to [Lyss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggiedragon), [Juls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribacchina), and [Yeoyou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeoyou/pseuds/Yeoyou)! They cheered on me and gave suggestions, and even beta'd. And shotout to _all of you,_ guys, because y'all's comments have been a constant reminder there's people who love this story and want to know what happens - renovating as well my own wish to tell it ;3

Graves wakes up before his alarm rings, sitting up in half a second. Drowning in air.

 

Behind his closed lids, there’s a haze of red that radiates directly from his left arm. The thrumming of its pulse mirrors his own heart’s, and brings him back from the nightmare he’d been having better than the sunshine coming in through the gaps in the curtains.

 

Nobody had told him weaning himself off the three times _cursed_ Dreamless Sleep was going to fuck with his mind so horribly. Had it been, what, an entire week of betrayals from his brain?

 

He gets so tense during them, it’s no wonder his arm reacts this way.

 

He should count himself lucky the night terrors come in one jumbled, nonsensical mess of The War and an unhappy childhood and the day Theseus and him had parted ways for good. They leave him breathless. Drained, and miserable, but they hadn’t been about Grindelwald or the captivity yet and that--

 

That’s a kind of relief that shames him. Graves hates that he’s still so affected.

 

It always takes him so long to get out of bed nowadays. The good thing is, the only person around has no way to know that just isn’t like him.

 

Credence still has to be coerced into feeding himself by Graves’ presence, somehow. No matter what he says, the boy just doesn’t dare to get close to the fridge unless he knows Graves will eat too; and he still doesn’t know if it’s out of caring, or out of discomfort.

 

This is how his mourning routine goes:

 

Graves slips into a smoking jacket, wraps it tight around his waist to ignore the comfier, roomier hang in its shoulders. Walks with slippers on to his very own bathroom, prepares the lather, prepares the straight razor he’s favored ever since he discovered he better not trust anything with a mind of its own so close to his neck.

 

The mirror is just another chore to overcome. He’s good enough at muscle memory to blur out most of his own reflection willingly, shave nice and true on feeling alone with his eyes stuck to the scar crossing  his face from brow to cheekbone. It’s far more of a clean _Scindere_ cut than anything disfiguring, but the difference jumps at him.

 

Credence’s idea. It had worked for him, too.

 

Graves smells like the grounding oak of his aftershave. Graves gets dressed in one of the suits that still somewhat fits, dark clothes at odds with a calmer existence, rearranges himself in the Right Way.

 

He still walks among the living.

 

This is how his _morning_ routine goes:

  
This apartment is almost as big as the brownstone he’d loved. The view of the park straight below is a breathtaking reminder of how much Graves had always enjoyed heights. It brings him enough of a spark he can hide any lingering anxiety by the time Credence joins him at the kitchen, bidding him an incredibly polite good morning, and then starting to set the dishes without a single word more.  


_“I’m not used to not having chores assigned, sir”,_ the boy had told him on his very first day there.

 

_“And don’t you have anything you would’ve done just because you wanted to? A hobby? Something you’ve always wanted to learn?”_

 

_“Mr. Graves, I’m sorry. I’m… not sure there’s anything.”_

 

And he’d thought of Credence’s handbound, ragged journal, the doodles he shouldn’t have seen and the writing he hadn’t intruded into; and the nice notebook he’d gotten him. He’d thought of Credence, looking at the phonograph when he thought Graves wouldn’t notice.

 

He’d also thought of his promise to not push.

 

_“Then your first chore is to find out activities to spend your time on. Something you’ll actually enjoy.”_

 

But as much as he’d meant it, the apartment still had to be kept clean and neat, they still had to feed themselves, and several days into their arrangement, they’d fallen into a sort of rhythm to share the load. With Credence looking _relieved_ he could be useful, and Graves secretly howling for his weakened magic, too feeble to _do chores_ the way he used to.

 

Doing things by hand kept him busy. He was done with the unpacking at last, having gathered the courage to finish putting his books in the new shelves - so many of them touched by the hand of his imposter. He’d even managed to arrange them by his own system like they used to be, instead of just let them rest unsorted like he’d started.

 

Maybe one of these days he’d have the impulse to read again something that wasn’t the New York Ghost and old case files.

 

Watching Credence set the kettle on the stove, Graves thinks of the box of matches he’d bought on their second day of cohabitation, and of Mercury Strip. The boy barely dared to speak most of the time, he plain didn’t if he wasn’t spoken to first, and how could he even _imagine_ getting him out for a new wand, then? Teaching him anything?

 

But he’d wanted him to be able to make himself a cup of tea if so he wished.

 

He gets the coffee pot brewing, gets out the bread and cheese and ham for their sandwiches. When Credence, wordlessly, also sets down the jar of strawberry jam on the breakfast nook, he counts it as another small victory. And tries to not think there’s any kind of setback, when he asks the boy how he slept, and whether the breakfast was to his liking.

 

“Everything is very good, Mr. Graves”, is the respectful, subdued reply. And then the well of conversation runs dry, and Graves’ aching arm prevents him from finding any other topic.

 

Had he believed just getting Credence to _come live with him_ would fix the boy on itself? Certainly not.

 

But he’s out of his depth. He’s had years and years to get used to live mostly in silence - He isn’t used to it now he knows there’s someone else living in the house. The growing shadows of afternoon make more noise than Credence over the floorboards.

 

He ought to be calling Queenie, even though he’s too wrung out today for the effort of prolonged mental shielding. Hell, either of the Goldstein sisters would be good, they’d both gotten Credence to talk to them; or maybe even goddamned _Yáñez_ so he could disregard etiquette and scream at him for not taking care of himself, and then take a look at his ward’s health. This selective mutism thing couldn’t be good for the boy.

 

Tina it is. _With a pigeon._

 

He’s about to place the offering in the window to summon one when his fireplace flares in green briefly, poofing a tiny square of parchment into existence.

 

 _“Can my little brother have this address? He’d like to write.”,_ the Floo telegram reads, and Graves can only exhale, and rub between his eyebrows. That was-- He had no reason to say no, just, Theseus was being so--

 

The red haze pulsing through his nerves, fingertips to shoulder, brightens up this side of scorching in the next beat.

 

Dizzy, he steadies his spine, takes deep breaths. It always hurts, to the point he’s been doing his best to stop paying attention to it. But it hadn’t been this bad in a while, and he’s pretty sure he hadn’t laid down on this arm as he slept. Surely the pain would go a degree or two lower, hopefully soon? At least back to a level he could push it into the background again?

 

Mercy Lewis, he has _things_ to do. All the things he’d been scrambling to hold onto, to recover his sense of normalcy, and fill all the hours he would’ve spent at the Woolworth Building instead.

 

Reading old case files is a bit like playing from a book of chess battles. The match was already over and recorded, but saying all the player did is repeating the steps would’ve been a mistake. The player put themself in the shoes of the original duelists, tried to figure out why they reasoned the way they did, got better from observation alone.

 

He’d been on leave so little time, and Graves, selfish old man that he is, already wants to bolt and knock on Seraphina’s door to beg her to let him go back. Only his pride saved him. And Madame President’s busy schedule, and the dossiers of several cases directed by the fascist fucker who had replaced him, mailed to him by a sympathetic Auror Palmer.

 

The ones who weren’t classified, at least.

 

So-- _things to do_ , and sighing deeply, still trying to exorcise the pain in his left shoulder through willpower alone, Graves manages to reach the notepad and the quill he’d set on top of the mantle for this purposes alone.

 

 _“Yes he can”_ , he replied. Newt… He remembered him, from many years ago.

 

They’d met shortly after the war, and even lived under the same roof for a time. He doubted he’d made much of a good impression back then, but the purpose behind this request was for Credence’s own good. Probably. Newt Scamander was an expert on beasts, the boy carried one within, they’d been together at that Subway Incident he still cursed.

 

If he ever had the chance to get back at Grindelwald--

 

He hoped he understood a little better the way his mind worked by then.

 

Dinner is so quiet an affair it makes him want to scream.

 

He forces himself to go to bed early, to not drink the potion, to not write Tina Goldstein a desperate pigeon asking for _advice_ of all things. He’s got this, he thinks. He’s got this, and all he needs is a little discipline… for himself. For the boy, what he needs to relearn is patience.

 

This is the way staring at the ceiling until his thoughts become a jumbled mess ends up being his solution for insomnia.

 

This is the way his nightly routine goes.

 

Graves doesn’t remember what he dreamt of, the next morning. He only knows that he must’ve rolled over onto his left shoulder in his sleep at least once last night, that there can’t be another explanation for the bright red radiating from it - reaching ‘till the tip of his fingers, and the curve of his ribs. He spends the day in a daze, slumped on the recliner and pretending to read, browsing between five different paragraphs strewn between the New York Ghost, two books, an old case file, and one volume of _Europe and The Near East: A Charming Conversation._

 

When Credence sneaks into the study, they stare at each other like a pair of equally startled prey animals.  


The boy doesn’t speak unless he’s spoken to, and the curiosity he’d shown on his first day had been starting to look more like a fluke than anything else. Graves is glad he’s been proved wrong for once - since he doesn’t see Credence going in or out of his room unless he’s directly instructed to, he’d started to worry all those books he’s been spotting missing and then returned in perfect position to their shelves had been taken by some odd kind of Poltergeist.

 

They _were_ known to favour pestering teenagers, or generally unstable people.

 

Slowly, hunching so terribly Graves can feel it in his own spine, Credence shuffles his feet until he reaches the closest shelf, and slides a book between the rest of its same collection. Right spot, even.

 

He wants to think it’s out of consideration, and not out of deeply ingrained survival habits. He’s used, by now, to be aware things don’t work the way he wants.

 

 _“_ Are those the _Orbis Luminosum?”_ , he asks, trying to sound amiable. Credence, he’s so damn pale just because of Graves’ presence, it almost offends him. The shadow of a dead woman shouldn’t be touching the boy here, nor distorting his own face into hers. That was what Grindelwald was for. “The encyclopedia.”

 

“I’m sorry, sir.”

 

_What got you interested in that one, I should’ve kept a list of the ones you’ve already borrowed, do you need a dictionary, did your bitch of a mother at least sent you to school--_

 

“There’s nothing to be sorry about”, Graves reassures him. “Told you to look for a past-time myself. ”

 

He pauses, giving Credence time to give him an answer. It doesn’t come.

 

“Didn’t take you for a reader”, he adds, trying. Trying so much.

 

Credence’s lips go pale, tight, and Graves realizes he’s made a mistake there, and in which way? Too condescending? Deliverance, he’s _bad_ at this, and he has no energy, no patience, so in pain cold sweat has been beading on his temples…

 

“I’m following your order, sir”, the boy says, unfailingly polite and yet the understated coldness in his tone isn’t to be missed.

 

Fuck.

 

“... This is your home”, Graves tells him, standing up. His right leg wobbles in protest, and the best he can do is to try to make it pass inadverted. “So is the library. I’m glad it’s getting use.”

 

_He should be using the cane. He should._

 

“Credence”, he says, straightening up his spine. “I’ll go get groceries. Feel free to stay here. And do tell me if there’s anything you’re liking in particular.”

 

This isn’t _absconding._ Graves is all about practicality. The apartment still has to be kept clean and neat, they still have to feed themselves. _Life went on._

 

He comes back shaking under the unbearable weight of a bag of winter produce and a loaf of bread. Seeing the door to the library open, and the boy nowhere to be seen makes him want to snarl just so his anger could be louder to his own ears than guilt.

 

He takes a shower. He gets dressed again in something comfortable, fighting the temptation of putting on a suit as if his office awaited all the way to the kitchen, and gets their next meal started.

 

In the end, it’s the scent of food being cooked what lures Credence out of his room again.

 

“Mr. Graves?”, he asks, standing by the threshold, and then he tilts his head, frowns. “Are you…?

 

He doesn’t go further than that. Somehow despite the still-enduring pain, Graves had managed to cook a simple dinner of bratwurst and colcannon for both of them, and apparently the effort has shown in his face.

 

Credence is looking at him, _worried._

 

“Bit of a stiff shoulder”, Graves forces a casual tone and shrugs. The gesture drives needles through his arm; and it shows that the boy doesn’t believe him, but for the first time, he’s grateful for Credence’s lack of initiative. He doesn’t ask further.

 

Dinner is so quiet an affair it makes him want to scream.

 

In his pajamas, staring at the ceiling, Graves ignores the craving Dreamless Sleep still ignites in his blood, and lets his thoughts unfocus into a jumbled mess.

 

This is the way his nightly routine goes.

 

Mercy Lewis, but is he glad to see Seraphina the next afternoon, finally. She receives him in the Pentagram Room, regal as always, until he looks at her from up close. She’s fresh out of a reunion, and Graves doesn’t think he’d ever seen her so tired. The gold of her turban is lackluster enough it doesn’t gleam in the sunshine coming from the outside.

 

He takes a seat in the middle of the sigil, as he’s always, always done, and she just… she shakes her head, earrings dangling, and shuffles the papers in her hands before setting them aside in a folder.

 

Tapping it twice, the folder shrinks small enough to be inconspicuous, and grows a small set of wings. She sends it flying high and buzzing with a wave of her wand, joining Magic knew how many on her personal office. There were things she did _not_ use the usual memo format for.

 

“I told you earlier I’d denied your request”, she says, quiet. Like it pains her to have to insist. “The parliament is still out for blood, I cannot linger here to explain it again.”

 

It’s a blow. Graves sprawls in the chair as if the iron cane by his side weren’t the most obvious thing, meets her eyes with his chin on high.

 

“Say the word and I’ll deal with them for you. Haven’t I done it before?”

 

“Graves, nobody here doubts of your… commitment, to this institution. Or your experience”

 

And there’s always a ‘but’, it’s right there resting behind Seraphina Picquery’s pursed Cupid’s Bow. She summons a dozen or so of the same small, winged folders she’d just sent away, and Graves has the certainty--

 

“You’re just… you’re not the same.” And there it is. He huffs, rolls his eyes.

 

“Don’t you dare say that fucking _fascist_ changed me for the worst, Picquery. I survived, I just need to get back into the swing of things.”

 

 _Medical files._ Those folders are his medical files, and his privacy hasn’t been _his_ since the day he’d taken the mantle of Director of Magical Security, but this is just--

 

“Graves, you’re not okay. You know this. _We all know this._ And, while your vocation is admirable… This country doesn’t survive on good intentions.”

 

“You need concrete results”, he completes for her, flat.

 

“I need concrete results. And you can’t give them.”

 

Graves’ vision swims. There’s a swarm of bees furiously blurring Seraphina’s words, droning on their white noise - inside his ears, inside his head, in this Pentagram Room where he’s _shackled,_ like a common traitor.

 

The folders, they surround him.

 

They crawl all over his skin.

 

“MACUSA can’t survive on good intentions, Graves”, Seraphina says from her high, high throne, and the ache in his chest is loud enough it screams over his burning left arm.

 

“You used to be the best”, Seraphina says, mournful, and the past tense is ice down his spine, frost creeping up the windows.

 

“Nobody wants you back”, Seraphina says, and Graves, and Graves--

 

Graves wakes up with a choked gasp.

 

Magic save him, but he can’t do this, he can’t, he-- _Fuck._ There’s just so much that could complete that sentence, and it kills him, and he can’t breathe, he needs--

 

He’s not touching the fucking Dreamless Sleep again.

 

He’s not going to last if he keeps going to bed without it.

 

He’s a Graves. He’ll make do.

 

Shaking, he disentangles himself from the damp kelp trap of his sheets, makes a beeline for the kitchen. He’s got a _cellar,_ for fuck’s sake. It’s two in the morning, and he doesn’t have to suffer this way if he can just… Just take a goddamn bottle and a glass, stash it in his dresser for easy access. He’s been difficult to himself on purpose.

 

Two fingers of whiskey become four and then another double, and then a third one. Magic have mercy, but did this feel good after entire days of pain. The relief doesn’t come out of a lack of feeling - the red, aching lines knit into his arm and his back don’t stop radiating signals. They keep going as strong as ever, but his perception, at least, has shifted them into something pleasant.

 

Graves stumbles back into bed. When he stares at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to come back, it’s spinning. Not by much - Just enough he can drift away, with a promise of void dreaming.

 

When he wakes up, he’s hungover, but saner than he’s felt in more days he cares to remember.

 

The boy looks at his bloodshot eyes, and says nothing.

 

Machines and guns and even wheel horses worked better when lubricated, procedures and schedules settled best when there were breaks in between to archive and decompress. Their week still grinds on, but its cogs go undeniably smoother now. Getting to sleep after heavy nightcaps is better than waking up in fear, or no sleep at all; he’s less on edge, he even manages to ask Credence about his _next_ choice in books, not wanting to remove the memory of the last one he’d seen him take.

 

He manages to ask him, too, what has he liked best of what Graves had served on their table. What does it matter if the questions had been one day apart, or the answers short? He’s decided to master patience, so he will.

 

Credence doesn’t know what he’s reading next, but he’ll see what strikes his fancy once he’s done with _Tome 5: Dagaz - Entente of 1707._

 

Credence has enjoyed a lot his newfound access to decent meat, and the baked potatoes.

 

And Graves, some days into his newfound medicine, isn’t even waking up hungover anymore. It’s reassuring to remember he’s not so old after all.

 

But the weather stays cold, stays grey and windy - Watching the heavy clouds drift by from their high window doesn’t quite help to keep track of the time. It’s odd how Graves has been simultaneously remembering, quite bitterly, he had used to like being outside; and how he’s being forcing himself to not step out of the apartment if he can help it. Mondays blend into Saturdays if he forgets to check the date on the New York Ghost. When he talks to Credence, both their voices are rusty with disuse.

 

_”Mr. Graves:_

_I’d like very much to see Credence again, if possible. How is he adjusting? What has he been doing? Maybe I shouldn’t be this worried, but he told us he’d write  as soon as you taught him how to summon a pigeon._

_Best regards,_

_Tina.”_

 

He comforts the shivering pigeon in his hands for a moment, until the indignant cooing quiets down and its little heart slows down again. Its feathers are damp, he notices, even though it’s not cold enough for snow. The message had been scrawled on paper from a notepad instead of parchment, too, and he can’t tell if the runny ink is due to haste or--

 

Graves sighs, and places the birdseed payment on the Mail Dish.

 

He doesn’t want to focus on how Tina didn’t ask about him. It’s petty. It’s pretty damn normal considering how he’s treated her, and his own radio silence ever since Credence moved in, bringing his own along.

 

He should invite her for tea. Maybe when the bad weather eases a little. Maybe when he’s in a position to remember, and pick dates. And isn’t it such a stroke of genius, then, than his ward seems to be perfectly fine with isolation as well.

 

Graves would’ve never allowed himself to shirk his duties this way before. Then again, he’d never been on _extended leave_ after getting replaced for two months.

 

He’s never-- _Deliverance,_ he’ll come back. He does remember the War had done a number on him as well. It’s the kind of thing he keeps locked in his drawer, under the whiskey and next to the untouched dossier on Credence Barebone; and hadn’t he overcome that? Became Head Auror two years later, and Director in three?

 

_“Most Esteemed Auror Goldstein,_

_Credence seems to be adjusting well, if slowly. I’ll pass your message along and arrange a date for a meeting shortly._

_I greatly appreciate your preoccupation._

_P.G.”_

 

He doesn’t write, nor presses the wax seal on with his left hand. But the accursed, malignant weather has all of his bones aching in ways that make him feel the entire weight of his age; and the tendons on that side are stiff. They cramp, they work at odds with his swollen joints.

 

The pigeon hadn’t been happy to be sent back outside.

 

Graves slumps on the sofa, allows himself to disappear into it, and be comforted by the still too-soft surface. Maybe even doze a little, if luck will have it.

 

It’s probably the reason Credence doesn’t see him at first, sliding over the floorboards in ways that tell Graves he’s already learned where they creak - crouching, one hand on the wall, and on the balls of his socked feet.

 

He scans the room so quickly, before going straight for the wooden chest the records are kept in.

 

Graves doesn’t dare to call attention to his presence. He doesn’t want the boy to bolt, doesn’t want to squash whatever curiosity is moving him to peruse the records now, long thin fingers touching the sleeves with such care; that they’re knobby, and they’re crooked, and yet he sees them on an ivory keyboard, crystal-clear.

 

_Oh. He’s stopped._

 

“I’m sorry”, Credence says, emotionless. His spine had gone stiff and bent half a second after Graves had dared to breathe, and he hates it.

 

Hates this unease, the hinted fear and the obvious misery, hates that it makes him wonder if the boy still sees his tormentors in him.

 

“What music do you like, Credence?”, he tries.

 

_’What-music--doyoulike’, that’s crotchets, two of them. Three beamed quavers, two more crotchets, rest._

 

_… One-bar rest._

 

 _Silence._ And the wind is howling outside, now, and Graves can’t help the shiver. He sits up, parsimonious, not wanting to spook this beaten alleycat turning around to face him equally slowly.

 

“I think I’d promised”, he says, aiming for softness, “I’d taught you to use that thing anyway.”

 

Maybe he’s succeeded, if Credence doesn’t run away and waits for him to get to the chest. If he stands aside with his hands laced behind his back, as Graves sifts the contents, trying to find one vinyl that would be appropriate, that would _say something._

 

The black disc slides out of its sleeve as if he hadn’t let it languish aside untouched ever since it’d been gifted to him. Graves blows on the grooves to make sure they’re pristine anyway and slots the vinyl on, lowers the needle. He doesn’t notice the tired half smile blooming on himself when the pleasant, quiet static announces the phonograph still works.

 

“Like this”, he says, quietly. “It runs on magic, but you just need to put a record on, and flip that switch."

 

Would it surprise the boy, if what comes out of the speaker is a No-Maj voice?

 

 _“I've lived a life but nothin' I've gained, each day I'm full of sorrow and pain”,_ and Graves huffs, rolling his eyes a little. Fond. Aching, too. _“No one seems to care enough for poor me, to give me a word of sympathy.”_

 

He hadn’t known the first song would be so full of commiseration, but then again, he'd wanted to go for an album of blues. Credence is still more important - Graves’ attention is set on him, waiting for a reaction, and _oh._

 

Raised eyebrows, dry lips slightly parted. The tip of his tongue dampening them, before he bites the lower one. It’s… Open curiosity. That’s a new expression, alright; and then the boy hides again as soon as he notices he’s being watched.

 

“That’s a black woman.”, he says after a while, frowning, and… Graves should’ve expected that, truly, being brought up by bigots. But there’d been no disgust to his voice, and he hadn’t said it with a slur, and so, he replies:

 

“Damn right she is. Dame Bessie Smith, best voice in the current No-Maj scene.”

 

Confusion grows all over Credence. It’s sort of nice to discover, this boy _can_ actually have quite an animated face, when he’s not doing his best to suppress it.

 

“Ma never--”, he murmurs, and now it’s Graves who hadn’t been expecting the boy to bring that up, “she never had any kind words, for this sort of music.”

 

Should he put it away, then? But, the interest he’d seen... And so, he gambles:

 

“And what are yours? I want to hear them.”

 

Credence says nothing for a long time. Studying Graves in brief glances, curving upon himself as if to hide further, and just as he’s about to give up and tell the boy to forget it--

 

“These are sad songs. Sinful songs”, he says. Worrying his lip between his teeth, all hesitation and shame. “But, ah. I… I liked them, when I heard bits of them around the city. Always did.”

 

It’s Graves the one parting his lips on surprise, now . And maybe something in it has reassured Credence, because he finishes it with a shrug, and a nonchalant, “they echoed”.

 

Almost as if daring him to say something?

 

“That was very well put”, he says, and discovers his quirked lips had grown into a calm smile.

 

Later on, he’d look back on this and remember, for once he hadn’t been paying attention to his pain then.

 

Right now, he can only notice how Credence looks like he’s on the very verge of smiling back. He awaits in silence, until it tugs on the corner of the boy’s lips - small and equally quick to disappear.

 

“Thank you, Mr. Graves”, he says, and the relief Graves feels loosens his back a little. Not enough to stay standing, though. He goes back to the sofa and plops down, sitting straight.

 

“It’s a Perpetual Phonograph”, he explains. “Once you’ve fed it a record, it’ll pick up for you another one with similar music, and so on, until there’s nothing else in your collection.”

 

Credence takes it in, probably wondering _how,_ and stays very still by the artifact’s side. No-Maj records held so little music in them. Five minutes per side, as opposed to the magical vinyls that could hold exactly an hour - Something about the thing being a circle made them appropriate for it. So it doesn’t take long for the song to fade into the next one, and then the needle goes up on its own, and the disc... starts floating.

 

It’s such a mundane spectacle for Graves; the boy’s entrancement as the vinyl keeps going higher, and then turns, is almost jarring in contrast.

 

It sets down gently. It starts back again just as gently, filling the room with a quietly powerful, mournful singing of _“Now listen honey, while I say - How can you tell me that you’re going away? Don’t say that we must part, don’t break my aching heart…”_

 

Graves’ gaze grew darker, whatever the hell he had inside his chest beating labored, hurting.

 

“Mr. Graves?”, Credence asked, looking at the record spinning. “I didn’t know wizards could…”

 

He paused, rephrased, and Graves couldn’t help the sigh when the boy finished it as, “this is… normal music. I thought, wizards couldn’t have it.”

 

The Rappaport Law. How many times it must’ve been discussed in front of him during those hearings that, as far as Graves knew, had treated him as if he hadn’t been a person capable of understanding _actual words._

 

“We aren’t supposed to, no”, he replied, and the explanation was long. Sighing again and trying to banish good Bessie Smith out of his mind for a moment, he reached for his most didactic tone. “We can _inherit_ No-Maj property. But we can’t personally buy neither their books, nor their music. Everyday commerce is permitted, but nothing from their culture.”

 

Credence was unreadable. It showed that he was wondering so, so many things.

 

“... How did you get to know about it? The music”, he asked, and Graves wasn’t going to let this chance at an actual conversation go. These were the most words they’d exchanged in…

 

How much time had passed, again?

 

“I got a liking for blues during the War”, he replies. “The boundaries were much, much blurrier between mages and the No-Maj when we all shared a trench. Still are in some ways, for the Europeans. Couldn’t have bought these on a store here, for example. It would’ve been illegal.”

 

Maybe it’s not surprising that Credence just nods in acceptance - and perhaps in disappointment, if that’s truly another expression he’s trying to conceal, and not Graves projecting on his blank, blank face.

 

He sighs, and leans back on the sofa, with his gaze stuck on the ceiling as if he could find clarity amidst the ornaments of the chandelier.

 

“ … The older ones of tango are mine, though”, he adds after a pause, and Credence’s bourbon eyes flicker back to him, briefly. Self-deprecating, Graves huffs, “Academy days. I wasn’t always Director Graves, you know.”

 

Which stings enormously. And doesn’t do anything to earn him a reaction from the boy.

 

The boy raised No-Maj, who’d been approached by a man wearing his face two months ago.

 

The boy raised by a No-Maj zealot, whom he had left to rot once it was clear there was no breach in the Statute to back his mother’s deranged witch hunt.

 

 _Fuck,_ he thinks, and also, _how much does Credence know?_

 

“... Someone else got them for me”, he finishes, quieter now, and wanting a drink. He’s too old, too old for these minefields. “Housewarming gift, he said”

 

“All of the new sleeves have the same initials on them”, Credence observes. He lifts one to show him - and there it is indeed, a stupidly ornate monogram Graves is sure riffs off his own in loving mockery, hinting at the mischief his owner only showed in private now.

 

“Theseus Scamander”, and he’s been growing tired for a while now. Melancholy weighs down in his chest, he’s pretty sure he isn’t saying the right things, he’s holding onto this talk out of stubbornness. His arm never stops hurting. “It’s… so he can tell Customs they’re on loan.”

 

“I don’t remember Mr. Scamander much”, Credence says, and the disc flies upwards once it’s over, sliding in its correct sleeve. The one the boy is holding is summoned in place, turning mid-air to start on the A side.

 

“The one you met is his brother Newt”, Graves replies, and isn’t he regretting the direction this talk had taken.

 

“But…”, and Credence’s frown is fleeting. Everything in him but silence is, apparently - he’d shut up as soon as he’d said that first syllable.

 

“... But?”, he tries to encourage him to continue with a small gesture of his right hand and, _Mercy Lewis,_ he’s hoping this hesitation is actually masking something good even if it isn’t likely.

 

“But then he didn’t--”, and no. No, it’s not, but Credence leaves it at that, struggles to change focus. “Is he your friend, then?”

 

A cheerful swing Graves doesn’t recognize is playing on the background, but the lyrics for _After You’re Gone_ had stayed stuck down his throat, bitter. The song had hurt him the same it’d done the first time he’d heard it, no matter how fucking long that had been, and the worst part was, _is,_ he’s positive Theseus hadn’t sent that record on purpose.

 

He hadn’t _wanted_ to leave Theseus. He hadn’t _wanted_ to get cold feet. And his lover, he’d begged and begged all the way to the Ministry’s portkeys, both of them grateful they were alone at the room for that goodbye and Graves just. Well, he’d shook his head one last time, and then he’d been _gone._

 

“He’s a colleague”, it’s his dry reply, and he can’t help the edge to his voice.

 

A colleague who sent him forbidden music, to add to a collection stagnant since 1920.

 

A man who’d been just as broken by the War, and had looked up to him anyway, as if Graves had deserved the pedestal.

 

His fault, of course. His pride hadn’t let him be clear enough on how deep the wound went, they’d barely came back - survivors from hell itself. Building _anything_ when he could barely keep himself together, in a world that remained an underhand reflection of the battlefield, had been out of the question.

 

When he looks at Credence again, the boy’s shoulders are so curved they’re painful to see. And so is his scowl.

 

“Thank you for the songs, sir”, he states in that polite tone whose meaning Graves has already caught on. “May I excuse myself?”

 

The hell is this boy doing anyway, digging up these memories.

 

“Go have some dinner, child”, he instructs, trying for the high ground. “I’m calling it an early night.”

 

It’s cold and damp enough even the scar on his eyebrow is bothering him. He’ll have his nightcap, and escape this damnable weather under the covers. Of all the bullshit his body has made him go through lately, he hadn’t been expecting his brain to join the betrayal.

 

Credence leaves, hopefully for the kitchen where leftovers of their lunch awaited, where there was fresh white bread and strawberry jam, and milk in a fridge that ran on _electricity_ instead of magic.

 

He did appreciate No-Maj ingenuity. Not everything was mustard gas and raining gunfire. He loved the sight of the city lights from their apartment, tame thunderbolts running through copper wires to mirror a million _Lumos_ charms. He loved the music, the mathematical precision of jazz giving way to creativity. 

 

He could have both through making use of all the loopholes he knew; and wasn’t that _fucked up?_ Even the boy, Graves had gotten to bring him in through sheer privilege. Because he’d sacrificed his life in the altar of MACUSA for twenty years, and somehow, this had earned him brief moments of them looking the other way.

 

Looking the other way so hard his prize now was limping to his new room, his entire left side screaming constantly, and magic so unstable he couldn’t--

 

 _‘But then, he didn’t--’,_ Credence had said, and Graves was certain that sentence was going to finish with a _‘recognize you’._ Had he meant Newt?

 

Had he meant _Theseus?_

 

_‘I should’ve known. I should’ve noticed. And you ought to know I’m deeply sorry.’_

 

They’d seen each other in that last hunt. Graves had expected finding the stranger he’d met all over again. He’d left Theseus Scamander in 1920, terrified of the ring he knew the younger man had been carrying in his pocket for over a week, waiting for the best chance to kneel.

 

He’d never told him that maybe once he got himself sorted, got _the world_ sorted so they could be with each other freely… maybe he’d come back. There’s _life_ and there’s _projects -_ anything that demands _hope_ to make up for the absence of plans, is castles in the air.

 

Retirement is an odd, stuffy trench. No projects, no plans. Chemical warfare has nothing on the constant pit of acid in his stomach that goes beyond frustration, demanding him to _fight back_ \-- Right as he lives with the _very one person_  he can’t, can’t show--

 

This is the way his reality goes.

 

He doesn’t mean to lock himself in his room, but by now it’s habit. He takes the bottle from its hiding place and pours two fingers, angry enough his hands are shaking.

 

The first rumble of thunder is too quiet for him to pay attention to. The second crack startles him so bad he spills whiskey all over his nightstand, makes him scramble for a handkerchief because he already knows _Scourgify_ won’t come to him.

 

Graves avoids the subway, but can use it. Graves had been frustrated enough by his reaction to the barrage of storms he’d _fucking mastered_ lightning. Had wielded it, had made it his signature.

 

He grits his teeth, and pours his drink again. The next thunder, and the next one, and the next one - they rain down his spine, and make his heart quicken, but he soldiers on. Does his best to ignore them, change into his pajamas; and defy whatever the hell he’s feeling by looking through the window.

 

His wand is dead. He’s not in control.

 

Lightning is a scar, drawn across this dark sky. The city, below, shines as bright as ever.

 

Graves counts the seconds, awaiting the thunder. He’ll be prepared. He’ll be--

 

In a pitch-black hole.

 

A booming crack makes the windows rattle, and he can’t breathe. Can’t breathe, can’t, can’t, his bad leg is giving way, he’s scrambling for the bed, gripping the duvet tight, hoping the silk, the silk reminds him it’s not fucking _canvas, isn't mud, he’s safe, he’s in New York City, he isn’t locked, he isn’--_

 

Fuck. Fuck. He’s blind. He’s blind again, isn’t it, and he smells blood and mud and shit, and he hears fucking Grindelwald all the way from the Woolworth Building, he’s so sure, and he won’t scream. Won’t give anyone the satisfaction, won’t--

 

Artillery booms again, and Graves isn’t whining. Isn’t curling upon himself, awaiting for his shield to give way no matter how much he feeds it, isn’t breathing in ozone, there’s no frost settling under his skin and into his bones, he isn’t--

 

He sees a flash of crimson. He sees a flash of rust. He sees lightning inside his very own room, crackling in silence, darkness coming alive in shades of sable and ash, fractals on the ceiling.

 

He isn’t blind. He isn’t _daft._

 

The Obscurus has slipped in through the cracks under his door, quiet like _death,_ and it’s everywhere. It grows, it envelops him -  Icy like a winter trench, more enormous to his eyes than New York itself-- And then, it just retreats.

 

Graves finds himself missing the bright, reddish glow of its embers before he realizes it. His room plunges itself into darkness again, robbing him of breath right until the door just… _opens._

 

Rivulets of smoke and inky bursts are coming off Credence, darker than black. Copper crackles through it, throwing brief flashes of light across the room.

 

The boy’s eyes are glowing in white when he meets them, and Graves had already been fighting off a panic attack. This, this sends him straight into numbness. He can only stare at the sight of his lithe figure in a pale nightshirt, wreathed, _crowned_ by this incarnation of shadows and pain.

 

Blurring into the Obscurus, Credence is so pale the severity curving his lips is unavoidable - full and surreally red. And Graves--

 

Graves, as atheist as being a mage allowed, doesn’t think of the devil.

 

He thinks of the stories of his mother, and remembers _in awe_ used to mean petrified in terror. Mean, _remember you’re small._

 

He thinks, _fae,_ and then the rational part of him kicks in, screaming through layers and layers of trauma, that he really, _really_ should get himself together.

 

Breathing heavily, Graves forces his body to unfurl, and stretches with a sound of popping joints. Sitting on the bed takes him so much effort it shames him

 

He faces the boy then, forcing himself to focus on the features of him that he knew, counting how many had remained unchanged.

 

The only notorious difference is in his eyes, amber bleached and wide open. Graves takes deep breaths and finally looks away, focuses his gaze in an imaginary horizon past Credence’s chin.

 

“I hate thunderstorms”, the boy explains, serious. “It’s the noise.”

 

He pauses, and _Deliverance, the Obscurus is still swirling._

 

“The electricity went out. And you were making the windows frost”, he continues, and then he stares at the stigma-like opening in his left hand, the Obscurus’ open door. Biting his lower lip, uncomfortable, before daring “all of them. So I thought, maybe you hated them too.”

 

_Credence had come to make sure he was alright._

 

And the rush of relief he feels is suddenly stained with a twin current of shame. It’s an odd mixture, opposite pulls, and Graves’ arm _hurts,_ complaining of his stupid, irrational emotions.

 

“Thank you, Credence”, he manages. “For coming to check on me.”

 

It’s… it’s odd to talk to him with the Obscurus out. Luminescence and all, it’s not helping him calm down, and the boy seems to notice. He wills it inside again, the creature surging back to the wound in his hand an equally odd sight-- until the room grows dark enough to throw him into blindness again.

 

“I see you can control it”, Graves tilts his head in an useless gesture, grateful for having at least something to say, so things didn’t get as awkward as their mornings.

 

To keep the boy around too. Maybe.

 

“Not at all”, said boy clarifies. “It’s-- not supposed to come out like that, with the medication.” Frowning, his hunched shoulders are such a contrast against the straight posture the Obscurus had granted him. “But I could call it back.”

 

“It’s an enormous advance”, Graves nods. Half of his brain hadn’t returned from wherever the panic had sent it away, but he means it. “Congratulations.”

 

A moment, and then he added, “would you like to sit down?”

 

There’s nowhere but the bed. A flash coming from the outside lets him see Credence’s troubled face, and he manages to realize this is considered improper.

 

Fuck that, though. Credence had just seen him screaming and curling up as if the Somme mud had found him in New York. The following thunder makes his hands curl tight on the duvet, straightens up his back; and oddly enough _that_ helps.

 

“You’re already in my room. I’d say propriety jumped out of the window a while ago.”

 

The boy huffs, and Graves could’ve sworn this small ghost of a smile on him as he sat down by the footboard, on the very corner. And then another one, when Graves makes a show of rubbing his temples so he’d spot it despite the darkness, and pats the empty side of the bed next to him. Gestures at the pillow and cushions to underscore it was alright, that it was _sensible._

 

Wordless, Credence had followed him - On top of the duvet, barely daring to touch the headboard, and yet…

 

Five minutes and several rumbling thunders later, he’d leaned on it with a sigh, vanishing what remained of Graves’ discomfort. He… Honestly, he’ll have _so much time_ to think about this day. The panic and the numbness he smothered it with, his anger and his wounded pride. And what would be the use, then, on doing it in advance?

They aren’t even close to each other, and yet something about having another person around is comforting instead of invasive, for once. Peace like this, a small harbor to weather the storm outside, willingly offered? He’s exhausted. No shame in taking it.

 

Silent, they wait for the storm to pass.

 

Graves wakes up alone as always, and half sitting - but loose and relaxed for the first time in ages. He hadn’t noticed the moment he’d drifted away, with a sound of rain hitting his windows, and the whiskey still untouched.

 

He has _so many questions_ about this boy. But it’s too early to think of anything but how _good_ he felt.

 

He closes his eyes, and puts all of his hope on getting a single hour more of sleep. He's earned it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- The songs Graves puts on are [After You're Gone](https://genius.com/Bessie-smith-after-youve-gone-lyrics), originally from 1918, hereby sung by Bessie Smith. And boy, oh boy, does Credence relate to [Wasted Life Blues](https://genius.com/Bessie-smith-wasted-life-blues-lyrics), also by her.
> 
> \- MACUSA is corrupt as shit, yeah. Good on you for finally noticing, Mr. Graves. Congrats. ~~And for noticing Credence's lips through this entire chapter, you fucker. Why in the world did I think writing the POV of such an emotionally constipated man would make kissing happen soon, ISTG.~~
> 
> THROW ME YOUR QUESTIONS, THROW ME YOUR EXTRA KUDOS. ANYTHING. Please guys. Please. It's been so long, I'm _begging_ you to drop by and say "HEY I READ THE THING" at least ;AAAA; ♥


	9. A Slow Groove (You Should Get Out Of)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s not that bad, isn’t it?”, Graves acquiesces softly. Tired and sincere, a bitter heart trying to be less so if only because both exhaustion and a melancholic boy are both asking him for it. “This world. Staying alive here.”
> 
> \----
> 
> Vulnerability opens doors. It's kind of becoming a pattern.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a goddamn beast of a chapter, and I'm so, so sorry it keeps taking me so long to update the fic. I hope that, through the power of a huge wordcount (admittedly, by my standards), and The Starts Of Graves' Crush, y'all forgive me for it. Please tell me what you think! 
> 
> Many, many, many thanks to all the people who endlessly listened to me whine about this thing. Yeoyu, Lyss, Jujuls, Sophie: You're all the most excellent people, and you kept me sane as I kept punching this story into submission ♥

 

* * *

 

 

 

Mercury Stip is an orderly underground market, concealed in the last basement of Grand Central Station. It goes all in straight lines, stores slotted behind storefronts that speak of _modernity_ in ways that would probably baffle Old World mages. Tina had never gotten to show Newt the place, and she suspected he would’ve found it a little too sterile, if his descriptions and drawings of his trips to other magical districts around the world were anything to go by. The clear stone and warm tiles haven’t even started to lose the newness to its shine. Countless mages had worn the pavement of Diagon Alley and Place Cachée in contrast; and maybe it wasn’t nearly as colorful as the markets in Cairo or Athens, where their kind hid in plain sight amidst the No-Maj.

 

Like them, though, it has its own kind of beauty. And like them as well, it’s always packed. Honestly, past the impression of harmony of its hallways, there’s no saying of what could lay behind the storefronts; or how small or big a store might be. There’s clothing stores, with the latest fashions to mingle among the No-Maj and the alterations that came with belonging to a group of people with different needs and techniques - Wand holsters, Expanded pockets, winter clothes with _Tepeo_ already woven into the fabric, so the caster didn’t have to pour their own magic constantly into staying warm. There’s no stores with any magical creatures with the exception of owls, kneazles, and crups with docked tails, sadly, but there were so many other things to see. The post office. The broom emporium, always flourishing despite the prohibition to fly them within the city limits without a permit. There’s even several stores just for candy.

 

_There’s Jonkers, the wandmaker._

 

Credence shakes his head, and Tina sighs, vanishing the illusions she’d been showing him, and leaving her explanation as it was.

 

“There’s too much people”, Credence says after a moment. “I don’t want to be an ingrate. But I’d rather not… go, to somewhere that crowded.”

 

From his armchair, two fingers of whiskey in his glass, Graves couldn’t agree more.

 

“Not even for a wand?”, Tina all but pouts. And Credence shakes his head again.

 

‘ _What if it doesn’t work? What if none work for me?’_

 

He didn’t have to say it for Graves to understand. He’s stranded in the same way. The idea terrifies him, and he both has at least an inkling or two that his magic is still around - in the shape of things like _ice, warmth,_ and movement… And a wand that used to work for him as a reminder.

 

It’s still there in his nightstand drawer, in the wooden box Senior Auror Arcenaux had given it back with. Inert in his fingers.

 

“I don’t think I’m ready”, Credence politely says.

 

Later on, Graves would get to discover, it was unusual for him even to dare say _no_ to anything, at all. It doesn’t surprise him. Tina has given him reasons to trust her; Credence doesn’t fear her turning on him for it.

 

Does it count on the same way for him?

 

Things had changed between them since the blackout night.

 

Credence would put the kettle to boil and get their tea and coffee started before knocking on Graves’ door to wake him up, sometimes. Conversation with him was still on the sparse side, but it didn’t have to be forced anymore. Very infrequently, Graves would even manage to lure him out of his room for reading on the couch opposite to his, and he’d ask (politely as _hell_ and with an odd accent that sounded nothing like Lower East Side) _,_ if he could pick the first album, so they got the phonograph started.

 

Graves had gotten to learn that, with Credence, there’s always a difference between _quiet_ and _silent._

 

“Sir?”, Tina is asking, waving a hand in front of Graves face that, to his _greatest goddamn shame,_ makes him flinch. On top of the disrespect. “What do you think?”

 

He’d gotten too caught up in his thoughts, with these aches of his body as his only distraction. But not so much he can’t surmise what the question had been about, and so, he swallows his scowl and sighs.

 

He can’t fail if Credence is looking at him with his lips tightened into a line, and eyes that shift away as soon as he meets them.

 

“The deal was, I’d try to teach you”, Graves says softly, trying for a start.

 

With his ruined magic. With neither of them daring to go underground to be swarmed by people who in all probability would recognize them, and maybe even fear them; and no wand to make things flow easier.

 

‘ _What if it doesn’t work? What if none work for me?’_

 

Deep breaths. From him, and from the boy.

 

Tina, clearly uncomfortable, gets up and gives Graves a half-hearted “I… think I’ll go buy those pastries I promised. Before it’s time for tea?”

 

She’s wringing her hat in her hands. And she’s right - this was something they should’ve talked about before, in private. Nothing had prepared her for realizing Graves hadn’t even mentioned the existence of _wandmakers_ to the boy - not even the details he’d spared for her in the letters they’d exchanged to arrange this visit. How many weeks had he had? And she’s probably going to dare give him grief for it. For the boy, she would, and gladly.

 

“That’s a good idea”, because he’s certainly in command of this situation. “We’ll be waiting, Goldstein.”

 

With the apartment this heavily warded, Tina has to leave through the door.

 

Knowing the difference, he can safely say _silence_ is much, much heavier than just _quietness._ It lays over them with the weight of the beast under Credence’s skin as soon as she walks out.

 

“I’ve been promised this before”, the boy says in the end, all calm belying wariness. “And you know it.”

 

Graves bites the inside of his cheek, arches his eyebrows as if the gesture would help him reach for something _better_ to say than the truth.

 

“Everyone… everyone in your building ended up knowing it all. Isn’t it?”

 

He doesn’t find a damn thing.

 

“I wasn’t around”, Graves says, “to hear the office gossip. And I didn’t read the dossier on you.”

 

The boy huffs and curls upon himself on what by now is _his_ couch. His dark bourbon eyes nail him into place once and briefly, and then he looks away.

 

Should Graves be explaining why? Had the boy understood without it?

 

“I already brought you here”, he says instead. “I haven’t failed my promises yet.”

 

When Credence opens his mouth, it’s not to ask anything Graves is expecting.

 

“Why were you not around?”

 

The way he’d caught on during his visits to MACUSA’s holding cells, people at Woolworth didn’t quite think the boy was a person. Precious few people were privy to what had been of him at first, and even afterwards, very little details had been released for the benefit of the Department of Magical Security. Who were sworn to protect the official version given to the press, whether they agreed or not.

 

Of course, _of fucking course_ nobody had told the boy-shaped beast down at Max Security what had been of him. Whatever Credence knew, he’d gathered gluing clues and assumptions.

 

Graves’ jaw is pure steel. He looks away and puts a finger under his right eye, _tap tap tap,_ pulsing an ellipsis on the scar _._ “I was in the hospital”, he says.

 

_‘I was in the hospital, and this isn’t the only scar I got. I was in the hospital and not even awake for most of it. I was gone for two months, and nobody noticed.’_

 

_‘I didn’t read your dossier out of respect.’_

 

_‘I was imprisoned. Defeated.’_

 

But he leaves it at there. No use on insisting if Credence had made up his mind on whether he wanted a magical education or not, at least for the day; the same it’s absolutely useless to divulge more personal information than it’s needed to make his point.

 

“Mr. Graves…” and for a moment, there’s so much sorrow shining through Credence’s almost, almost neutral expression. It escapes through his eyes, and in his tired sigh. “I’m grateful, then. That you didn’t read about me.”

 

 _Quite an animated face when he’s not doing his best to suppress it,_ and Graves curses on the inside when he sees the grief briefly overtaken by lips curling in anger, furrowed eyebrows.

 

It passes, when Credence shakes his head. It guts him, when he says  “and I’m sorry to hear you were hurt.”

 

Distantly, as he scrambles for coherency and denial both, he knows there’s no way it’s sarcasm.

 

“Thank you”, Graves manages, because the boy is, Mercy Lewis, _polite as hell_ and the last he wants is to make him think he’s throwing this sincerity to his face. Does he fail when he adds, asks, “Goldstein is coming back any minute, isn’t she?”

 

Wasn’t he glad he hadn’t finished his drink yet.

 

Wasn’t he glad he’d, apparently, summoned Tina straight to his doorstep. Three quick raps, the _tresillo_ they had agreed upon. Not quite a password, but hearing it soothes Graves, and he gets up, cane forgotten, to open the door for her once the wards confirm her signature, standing over that lying ‘Welcome’ mat.

 

In her arms there’s a brown paper bag, with no label he can see.

 

“Brought Rugelach”, she announces, and goes straight to his kitchen to leave them there - the kind of casual, gentle bravado that Graves, for Magic’s sake can’t help but both admire and bristle to. Damn kid and her propensity to nosedive into trouble.

 

“I’ll get the kettle started”, Graves calls, closing the door. When he looks at Credence again, he finds him curled up on his seat, looking out the window with an absent stare

 

He has to talk to Tina. He hasn’t wished for a _Muffliato_ this badly since he got his wand.

 

Bitter, he turns on the stove with a spark of flame he knows he can summon and control, and sighs. “It appears there’s things I should’ve explained”, he says, and it’s the closest he ever goes to an apology. Which Tina is aware of.

 

She shakes her head. “It makes sense to me. Hadn’t expected it, but it does, sir.”

 

In another life, he would’ve been offended. Here and now, there’s sweat beading on his brow from the effort of standing, enough he just sighs and goes, “he hasn’t shown a wish to step outside the apartment, Goldstein. Taking him to Mercury Strip sounds like the mother of terrible ideas.

 

Tina leans against the cabinet, pensive.

 

“... And what about making the wand come here?”, she asks, and now-- Now Graves does flare, before he can stop himself.

 

He forces it down and swallows. And says, irritated but perfectly in control, “I’d like to know why in the world you think I’d let a stranger into my house.”

 

Tina shivers, her shoulders slump. It doesn’t last over a second or four.

 

“Jonkers the wandmaker plain doesn’t _do_ house calls, Mr. Graves”, and Mercy Lewis, it shows in her face she’s pleading. “But I’ve got good word Shikoba Wolfe has been planning a trip north for now, in February.”

 

“I don’t care”, Graves replies, voice like a blade and arched eyebrows. The selfishness of his words hits a second or four later, too.

 

Tina’s imploring visage shifts into something plain pained with a wince in between.

 

“Credence… Credence does want to learn, sir”, she says, quieter now. “I know he has since at least the day he realized, not all witches were bad.”

 

The following pause is so long, so uncomfortable, the kettle boils and whistles before Graves finds a solution to both this dilemma, and the pang of sympathy punching him in the gut.

 

He’s never crossed paths with Shikoba Wolfe. He’s not opening his door to someone he hasn’t cleared before.

 

Not that it had kept him safe before. This is about his brain, behaving plain irrationally.

 

He hates that he still can’t get it under control.

 

Turning off the kettle and gesturing Tina so she’d help with the cups inside the very cabinet she’d been using as a support, he finally replies, “If we took the Floo, we could do it at the Woolworth Building.”

 

“... The Floo, sir?”

 

_Shit._

 

Graves grits his teeth and admits a truth that is only partial - for the rest is for himself only, and the Healers bound to secrecy by MACUSA’s vows. “My wand was damaged in the hands of that fucker. And considering the nature of Credence’s condition, I’m not sure he’d take well to being Side-Alonged, even less wandless.”

 

Tina doesn’t believe his reasons. It shows. She’s kind enough to take them anyway.

 

“Not a bad plan”, she tries.

 

“Thanks. Kind of used to be good at those”, Graves deadpans. If he makes a mockery of it, then it shouldn’t hurt.

 

It makes Tina laugh.

 

It’s awkward, uncomfortable, and yet it’s the first time such a sound had been heard at this new apartment, Graves realizes, and how… maudlin, maudlin is the word; shouldn’t he be taking measures to make that change?

 

“I hope you like the pastries, Mr. Graves” she says. “Do I take them to the dining room, or…?”

 

“Coffee table is alright.”

 

Credence loves the rugelach at the first taste, quietly and all, and Graves can see why. Tina tells them about the different fillings over tea, explains why she picked cinnamon sugar of them all. Shifty, she declares with a cheerful grin she won’t tell where she picked them up when he asks, too. It would’ve made him think she’d baked them herself if that weren’t such a ludicrous idea -  As far as he’s been told, Queenie was the one who had inherited the entirety of the culinary talents in that family.

 

“Alright, then, keep your secrets”, he tells her with an arched eyebrow.

 

How odd. Things had been pointing to a mess of an afternoon after that talk with Credence that barely deserved the title, so stilted, so unfinished. He’s finding out his mood can still recover after all of this.

 

It lasts exactly as long as it takes Tina to present Credence with the idea.

 

“I’m not going back there”, Credence states. It sounds final.

 

Can Graves blame him? Can he really? The same way no jury would convict him for not offering his apartment as a venue on the spot. He rubs at his temples, closes his eyes as if either thing would help him _think._

 

“But Credence…”, he hears coming from the other armchair.

 

“I…”, the boy takes a deep breath. “I apologize. For inconveniencing you. You’re trying to help, and I’m being rude, and an ingrate.”

 

Slowly, he stands up. And picks up his empty cup, the dish, the spoon, fiddling with it a moment. His calm belies _heartbreak._

 

“I just don’t think I can be taught.”

 

He leaves, and from his place, Graves can hear the kitchen tap running.

 

Closing.

 

Dripping, even after the sound of Credence’s footsteps have vanished towards his room.

 

Graves sees Tina to the door shortly after, every movement measured. There’s his cane in the umbrella stand, unused; there’s an apology sitting heavy on his tongue. There’s so many things he should’ve been doing. He’d sworn to help Credence, get him out of his shell, invite him into this world that’s rightfully his to explore and live freely in. It’s his only duty now, and _he’s done a piss-poor job of it all -_ Does it matter if he’d intended to take things slow to not spook the boy, when his motivations hadn’t been selfless?

 

He doesn’t get to form the words.

 

Tina won’t look at him. She squeezes her hat in her hands once, twice, before putting it on. Two taps of her wand, and her warm grey jacket shifts into the brown coat of Aurors in active duty - she’s got places to be at, Graves observes, and here they’d summoned her for… basically no good news.

 

And she tells him, “if you can convince him…Tell him we can do it at my house.”

 

Isn’t Tina Goldstein only twenty-four? Nobody her age should be looking this tired.

 

“Thank you”, Graves replies with a nod. It’s better than an ‘ _I’m sorry’,_ it carries the _‘I’ll do better’_ implied the way he likes it. “We can start making arrangements in a couple of days. Hope your mission goes well, Goldstein.”

 

Wry and all, her smile looks genuine. “Right back at you, sir.”

 

She leaves, and with her, Graves’ need to pretend his leg hadn’t been aching like a carving on live flesh.

 

He sits down on the piano’s bench, too drained for the sofa mocking him ten steps away. His good hand drums a quick, flat _stacatto_ on the lid, echoing so faintly on its body the sound feels like an illusion.

 

“I didn’t say goodbye”, the boy comments behind his shoulder and Graves jumps in his seat, hand slamming wildly against the wood. Loud like his heartbeat.

 

Turning around wide-eyed, he finds a mirror in Credence’s face. Two equally startled prey animals, _again,_ and this at least snaps him out of it.

 

“I’m…”, he waves and stops immediately when he realizes the movement makes the boy flinch, “I’m pretty sure Goldstein doesn’t hold it against you. We upset you.”

 

_Silence. Fuck._

 

“I’m sorry”, he adds, because there’s things Credence understands unsaid, he’s pretty sure of it. And some others that he knows he has to say, over and over until they stick. “Didn’t mean to upset you now as well.”

 

What in this forsaken world has he been playing at? Pretending he can _fix_ Credence Barebone? Couldn’t even help himself. It doesn’t escape him that they’d gotten to be a little more than strangers just because the boy caught him having a case of the vapors that other night.

 

Mercy fucking Lewis, he needs a drink. Another one. He doesn’t care anymore. Prohibition screwed him over, there’s no way to find the painkillers he remembers from the War without a No-Maj prescription, and how’s he going to show one of _their_ doctors anything like these limbs of his?

 

“Can’t even stand up right now”, Graves confesses in the end, quiet. Raspy like stale coffee and twice as bitter. “You’ve got literally nothing to fear from me.”

 

Maybe it’s worth it when he sees Credence’s shoulders uncoil just enough for him to nod.

 

“I didn’t mean to startle you either. I’m sorry, sir.”, and he’s hesitating as if on the verge of saying something else. It’s there in his bitten lips, a spot of blood in the pale sharpness of his face.

 

“... Go ahead”, Graves sighs, and what does it say of him? That he’s expecting mockery, even after that apology?

 

“Do you need your cane?”, Credence asks, and it would’ve felt a little bit like that, but the boy is so serious. Earnest. “Ah. Or your wand?”

 

His own stunned reply is _Silence_ too, and the boy dares and dares, because apparently Graves’ not worth talking to most of the time, but Credence _would_ step in to nurse all these moments of hurt if he has to. He isn’t sure he should commend him on it or.

 

“You never needed it before”, he continues. “To heal me. But maybe it’s different when you do it for yourself.”

 

And then it’s either telling him they never, ever met before that night at the cells, or saying the truth.

 

Graves isn’t enough of a bastard to hurt Credence just to sidestep his concern.

 

“... Child, my wand hasn’t worked for me since I got it back.”

 

He feels that quiet gasp in his very lungs, no matter how still they’d been left by the confession. And of course, Credence won’t look at him now, won’t he? That bourbon gaze is spilled all over the floor.

 

Shaking his head, he adds, “it’s in my drawer if you want to see it. Left nightstand. It’s dead and I don’t care.”

 

He doesn’t, _he doesn’t,_ and isn’t his nonchalance proof enough? It doesn’t surprise him either when Credence indeed leaves in the general direction of his room. He’s grateful for the reprieve. He shifts a little on the velvet stool of the piano, tests his leg and-- no, not happening, he shouldn’t be leaning on it anytime soon.

 

Tired, he unlocks the lid with a pass of his hand, huffing when it works. He’s got _heat, ice,_ a small bit of _movement,_ and a _key_ for simple things. On its base, magic is wild energy and the desire of the caster. Wands channel it, spells are mnemonics. Shouldn’t be strange he’s stranded like this, then.

 

There’s so little willpower in him, under the armor.

 

He strokes the keys with his eyes closed. Wouldn’t dare to try anything with his bad hand, curled still on the edge of his seat, but this is something he’d used to like, at least. There’s a half-forgotten melody on the tips of his fingers, even though he’s not pressing down on anything. Schubert, maybe. No-Maj composers had done many a great thing in the past century.

 

He can hear Credence’s footsteps behind him, and he knows the boy is making noise because he needs to hear it. Graves just hadn’t been expecting him to press a glass with a dram of whiskey to his hand.

 

“I can’t find medicine anywhere”, he says. “And this isn’t good for you. But it’ll help with the pain.”

 

_Why?_

 

“Thank you, my boy”, Graves sighs, and accepts it. With his gaze away, he wouldn’t have seen Credence flinch. But he did feel it, when his now shaky fingers touch the scar across his eye, as if asking him to lift his face.

 

“I don’t know you”, he states in the end, and then goes and adds a _‘yet’_ before Graves can be hurt by it. “Didn’t know you played the piano.”

 

It’s such a non-sequitur, he finds himself replying “not in a long time.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I was too busy, I guess”, Graves says, and hides his thunderstruck left hand in the pocket of his smoking jacket. No way to go back to it now, and so, it’s a moot point. “There was always so much to do.”

 

“At MACUSA.” Credence says it like it’s a dirty word, but nothing in his big, open eyes betrays more than that fleeting distaste.

 

“At MACUSA”, Graves sighs, echoing, and closes the lid of the piano. What was there to say, truly. The institution… Well. A lot of the anger he’s hellbent on pouring all over himself has to do with MACUSA and its abandonment.

 

(Theseus, Theseus had begged him all the way to the portkey, and then slapped him with words to better make the sting last, _‘Your bloody work’s never going to love you back, Graves! Don’t you forget that!’_ )

 

“You don’t do things you like, then. But you told me to find something I did”, Credence states. Such an odd boy. Every word he says like this sounds like a declaration of intent, marked. A little bit cold, too, even though it doesn’t look like he means it. “Would you-- Can you teach me?”

 

Being stunned so many times in a row makes the world go blurry, for Graves. There’s an glass between him and everything else, transparent and bulletproof, many inches thick. There’s a quiet hiss somewhere in the distance, a needle through a vinyl trench, No-Maj’s radio static.

 

“What would you like to learn?”

 

He’s noticed yet another issue of the _Orbis Luminosum_ had to be currently squirrelled away in Credence’s room, and does he even commit to the ones he’s been taking out, or is he desperately trying to find a particular Something? He does know the boy is a slow reader, he’s seen him; but he’s been rapidly cycling in and out of the library an old book of No-Maj fairy tales he’d forgotten he had, Beedle The Bard, and a single volume from his collection of poetry; while the Webster’s definitely found a new home. There’s his Bible. There’s the journal Graves gave him, and the old one, and does he use either of them?

 

He has an answer when Credence replies, “everything.”

 

Graves Isn’t There. And so, this gets a teasing smile out of him. “That’s very greedy, child.”

 

Credence huffs and shakes his head, deadpans “I know I’m not good.”

 

Graves Isn’t There. And so, his healthy hand reaches for Credence’s shoulder, and squeezes gently. “I know that isn’t true.”

 

He lets go, and drinks his whiskey, tasting the things he shouldn't have said all over again. His eyes are stuck on the amber of this boy, strange and daring, dark like a well. Who killed his abuser. Who wrecked New York.

 

Who’s held him through his hurts.

 

Credence smiles at him, all softness. It lasts a second.

 

“The things I’ve wanted… It’s all sin”, he replies, and just like that, everything’s bittersweet again. It makes Graves’ chest hurt and brings him back into his own body.

 

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting more.” He sets his empty glass on the piano’s lid, and it doesn’t matter how softly he does it. He can still hear a faint echo. “More of _everything._ Nothing wrong with being angry either.”

 

There’s so much doubt in this boy’s face, and he knows, _knows_ he has somehow turned this into a talk about the Obscurus. But as far as he’s concerned--

 

“Maybe you should read the dossier”, Credence says, and turns around to leave, and _Graves isn’t having any of it._ He reaches for the boy with both hands now, grabs him by his arms. He didn’t mean to make him flinch again, but it happens anyway, and he hates it. Credence’s pale, tight lips speak of repressed irritation.

 

“Maybe you should talk to me”, Graves states in return. He wants so badly to make that fleeting smile return. He’s going too fast, the very opposite of all this time they’d spent together - still waters, time thick like sludge. But it’s not like it’s worked. Patience and inaction are not the same fucking thing.

 

“I’d be a really sad excuse for a guardian”, he adds, arching his eyebrows, “if I judged things for what I’ve been told, instead of what I’ve seen. And what I’ve seen is a good boy.”

 

Credence’s shoulders slump. He doesn’t struggle in Graves’ hold. He just goes limp and curved, a rag doll with no spine.

 

“You’ve said it’s alright to be angry”, he says, voice quiet and raspy in shards of ice. “Sir, I hate being lied to.”

 

Graves Isn’t There, but giving up now feels like a surefire way to fuck up, forever.

 

“So I’ll prove I’m not”, he replies. He’d been an unmovable object once, a source of strength even for the people he wouldn’t let in. “You’d been promised you’d be taught. _You just asked me to teach you._ Why in the world are you retreating now?”

 

Credence’s hands curl into fists. Credence’s body starts shaking. Graves still Isn’t There, and isn’t thinking.

 

He pulls the boy close, and hugs him tight.

 

It’s as brief as Credence’s smile had been, but the boy _is_ looking at him now - the spots of color in his monochrome self clearer than ever. Flushed cheeks, a retreating film of white unveiling his gasoline eyes. Red lips slightly parted, slightly bitten.

 

“Credence, there’s magic in you. Let me get you a wand”, Graves states. _Vows_. “Let me, and I’ll show you something new.”

 

Credence nods, twice and tight-lipped, and turns around to flee in steps as measured as his.

 

It’s not the best way he could’ve delivered that answer, but Graves will take it. He suspects he has an idea of how hard it must’ve been to give it. How _hopelessly_.

 

He stays where he is until his leg gets tired of hurting. He’s glad they have leftovers from lunch, he’s glad the kitchen works on gas and not magic so it’s easy to just warm it, until the smell lures Credence out of his room to set the table and eat with him.

 

Graves doesn’t ask questions, and the boy looks like he’s grateful by the time they’re finishing. He even offers to do the dishes, and he takes the chance to limp towards the living room again, to write Tina a note and summon a pigeon.

 

She replies right away - and the postal service covers the distance across Manhattan with speedy accuracy, but judging by the length of the letter, she’d been _practicing_ what to tell him from the second paragraph and onwards, for the longest time.

 

_“Dear Mr. Graves:_

_Turns out, M. Shikoba Wolfe arrived to the city about three days ago! They’re free tomorrow - I’ll be working all day, but Queenie will be around to receive youse and them._

_So a bit of information now, since you haven't met this wandmaker: It's not strange that you haven't, because they're pretty new in the business. M. Wolfe is a No-Maj born from Oklahoma, Choctaw nation. They are what their tribe calls a ‘two spirit’ person - both male and female. So please refrain from offending them in that aspect!_

_They work with Thunderbird feathers, and their methods aren’t the same as Mr. Jonkers. They’re going to meet you once, ask questions, and show you the wand they’ll make based on your answers the next day. Back in Wand Permits I saw several, and I think Credence will like the look of them._

_Best Regards,_

_\- Tina”_

 

He almost feels bad for the short letter he’d sent her to ask about dates. And then he remembers, she’d lectured him on _being well-bred_ , and stops himself right there. Sighing, he folds the thing and goes looking for Credence to tell him the news. The apartment may be big, but not so much Graves wouldn’t find him with ease; and after a cursory expedition, he deduces he must’ve gone to hole up in his room.

 

Before he could knock, he noticed the door was ajar, and it was dark inside. Graves hasn’t been here in weeks, and finds himself looking around without meaning to.

 

Credence had pushed the bed towards a corner of the room, slotting it neatly - How long ago? The boy himself is tightly curled into his side, sleeping like a rock. Graves’ surprise lasts until he spots the empty tin vial on his nightstand. Calming Draught?

 

He reaches for it, and talks himself out of it immediately, turning to go lean on the door again with a weary sigh. It’s his own spiel on privacy what prevents him from staying any longer, burying the Auror instinct telling him to pry. He’s lost the privileges of his position anyway. And speaking of--

 

Mercy Lewis, what in the world had he been thinking?

 

 _He’d let Credence look into his fucking drawers_. He’d found the whiskey, and Graves had to count his lucky stars the boy apparently hadn’t stayed long enough to see everything else.

 

What was _wrong_ with him, for Magic’s sake? Never in his life--!

 

Percival Gondolphus Graves had never, ever been so careless with the things he’d rather keep out of sight.

 

Appalled, he limps to his room, drinks enough to drown the shame, passes out in a haze so thick it drowns the red signals wracking through his limbs. There’s no undoing this mistake. But routine is routine is routine; as safe as it’s thoroughly quiet, and since Graves would gladly die before he brought it up again, the boy doesn’t make questions in return.

 

Three days later, Credence Barebone finds himself subjected to his first Floo trip.

 

He coughs ashes all the way through it until the Goldsteins’ house and then some, and how not to? Graves would’ve never imagined the sisters had been insane enough to install a Floo connection in a _stove,_ and the smaller the exit, the more violent the landing. This fireplace, it practically spits them out, and it’s pure serendipity Graves doesn’t trip over his own feet.

 

Queenie doesn’t lose time going to Credence, touching his shoulder lightly and retreating-- and then starting, turning to him.

 

It’s so very uncharacteristic, when instead of commenting on _anything_ she shouldn’t have any business knowing she just… welcomes them in, and passes Graves a brush to get the grey out of his clothes. She greets them so warmly he almost doesn’t notice she’s leading them elsewhere, busy processing how he’d never been at Tina Goldstein’s home, the size of the apartment, the fact that the heater had been in their room; that as she ushers them to the living room, he notices the table had been pushed aside to get all three plush chairs they own closer together.

 

Credence walks behind him, his anxiety manifesting in explicit ways. Which wasn’t bad, if it meant he was learning to show emotions, but honestly...

 

“Good afternoon”, says Wolfe from his chair. A cup of tea warmed their hands, but the biscuits on the coffee table were untouched.

 

Graves may have noticed the braids first, but he hadn’t been expecting a young adult in a modern suit, old but well-kept. He doesn’t want to think what that means about him, either.

 

“Good afternoon”, he replies, and doesn’t move to unshield Credence.

 

The boy murmurs a greeting behind him, and shows himself with two short steps.

 

“So you’re Credence?”, they wave, tranquil. Their voice is slightly nasal, Graves notes, and he stops himself when he realizes, he’s cataloguing this person to determine whether they look dangerous or not, and looking for their wand. He’s being paranoid. It’s not right. “Miss Goldstein here’s told me a ton about you.”

 

Credence doesn’t look pleased nor scared by that prospect. He asks, amber eyes wide open and a neutral tone, “Are those good things?”

 

If Graves didn’t know him better, he’d be sure the boy was joking. Wary as Credence has been, it’s far more likely he’s trying to assess this person the best he can.

 

Wolfe was grinning now, though.

 

“Enough to know, I definitely want to make a wand for you. May I speak to you in private?”

 

He couldn’t help a frown. It deepens when Credence nods again, and looks at Queenie as if asking her _’where?’_ And he has to snap out of it because he never was this apprehensive as an Auror. His brain is just being a traitor.

 

“You two can stay here, sweetheart”, Queenie tells him. “Mr. Graves, follow me?”

 

She’s being so serious it doesn’t feel like herself, Graves thinks. Is this because of what he’s asked her to do about Credence? Otherwise, she would’ve been cracking a joke about the impropriety of the situation any other day, trying and failing to make things less awkward.

 

Just as he’s thinking he rather prefers it this way, she goes and shatters it with a single question.

 

“You’re very stressed out, aren’t you Mr. Graves?”

 

It’s pure self-control he’s icy and not snarling when he warns, “Goldstein, I’ve told you--”

 

“Oh no, honey, I don’t need to read your mind to _see_ things, you know?”, awkward, she smiles and waves a little, as if chasing the very idea out of the room, before clapping her hands. Clasping them together before she added, “plus you’ve got all sorts of barriers put up and I’m not breaking into _those._ It’s just written all over you.”

 

“Then you’ve answered yourself”, Graves replies, dry.

 

“It’s called a conversation starter, Mr. Graves”, she says, still far too cheerful considering her former demeanor, and sitting down in her own bed, awkwardly leaving him the choices of either staying where he is, or sitting down in Tina’s. She takes away even that when she says, “please sit down. You didn’t bring your cane again.”

 

Shame bites at him. He complies.

 

“There’s better things to talk about, Goldstein”, he comment, rolling his eyes, and then proposes exactly zero topics. It’s never pleasant to be read this easily.

 

“I... Uhm, well. I don’t know how much time it’ll take M. Wolfe to know what wand they’re going to make”, she offers instead. Her teeth clench slightly in stress, but she’s doing her best. “Do you remember your first--?”

 

Queenie frowns, and Graves panics.

 

When Tina Apparates right in front of him, he almost has a heart attack. But as soon as panic gives way to rationality, the first thing he thinks is, he’s grateful it was just her, instead of her sister having seen something she didn’t like despite all his barriers.

 

Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel guilty. He knows he’s just been rude and unfair to Queenie Goldstein, which considering how much he owes her, is unacceptable.

 

“... Queenie”, he asks for her attention, as soon as his breathing is somewhat back to normal. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

 

It’s highly possible the only reason Tina Goldstein hasn’t thrown protocol to the winds and broken his nose _yet_ , even without hearing what the fuck is going on, is pure surprise.

 

The long conversation that follows details far more about his life than Graves would like, even though he does his best to keep everything in neatly listed facts, with a hard focus on the boy. He explains how reluctant Credence has been to going out outside, which isn’t that bad considering his “outside” days are limited to a handful per month. He explains how slow has he taken things in an attempt to earn his trust and how it hasn’t quite… _worked,_ so far.

 

He doesn’t say, he wouldn’t know what the boy trusting him would look like.

 

He doesn’t say, Credence is ineffably, insufferably good at spotting his weaknesses. Nor that _those_ times are the ones that had gotten them the closest.

 

By the time he’s done, Shikoba Wolfe is knocking on the sliding door dividing the Goldstein’s apartment in too, with Credence looking oddly faint on one of the couches.

 

He kind of hates that he can’t just Disapparate him away, right then and there.

 

“Everything is fine”, Wolfe tells them, still smiling their imperturbable, immutable smile. “I’m pretty damn sure I can make Credence here a wand that works. Let’s meet… huh. Tomorrow, at this same time? I’m staying in the Bronx but I’m not sure you’d like to go that far.”

 

“Please”, Credence asks all of a sudden, voice rough and hopeless. “Not in the Bronx.”

 

Graves can’t help but stare at him, eyebrow raised. The distance from Two Bridges to The Bronx was far too large for it to have been one of his pamphleteering haunts. Had something happened there?

 

“Wouldn’t make you!”, Wolfe waves. “Miss Goldstein, can we meet up here?”

 

“No problem!”, Tina called back, rushing in her way outside. She’s putting on her brown Auror coat without missing a step. “I’ll be around instead of Queen, that ok?

 

“Absolutely!”

 

Shortly after, they say their goodbyes and Disapparate away, leaving… well. Only the three of them, each looking more exhausted than the other.

 

“I should’ve never…”, Credence mutters, and then Queenie was rushing to his side, sweeping his damp fringe away. Summoning a tea towel, too, to pat his forehead dry.

 

“I’m sorry, sweetheart”, Graves hears her say, and-- Something is afoot, all his instincts are screaming about it, and _they wouldn’t tell him._ He is the intruder in this scene. Awkward, he shifts on his feet, wishing he had indeed brought his cane. The only thing he is sure of, something about this screams of bad memories.

 

He's not risking either of them in the public transportation, he's definitely not going to try to Side-Along Credence. _'Talk to me’,_ he'd say but the best he could do was still wait, and take care of the boy.

 

The way he finds is, he excuses himself to call a cab for both of them, so they can go back to their comfort zones and _rest._

 

Is he doing the right thing? Mercy Lewis, he’s got _no fucking clue._ They ride in such silence he’s feeling like he’s misstepped yet over again, like he’s swallowed something far thicker, far more bitter than stakeout coffee at one in the morning. His thoughts are the only thing that races - Tina’s needling on both Credence and him, his confessions of the hermit life they’d taken to, Queenie’s unusually shy _‘you should buy him some clothes of his own at least, Mr. Graves’._ Endless repetitions of things he’d said, things he’d regretted saying, things he should’ve--

 

Credence’s paleness turning into ice after whatever Wolfe had asked remains amidst its patterns.

 

He almost jumps when the boy tugs at his sleeve, signaling outside with a gesture of his chin - the cab, it had came to a stop right outside their building. The driver is looking at him, curious and expectant.

 

Caught, he gives him a muttered apology out of politeness, and tips well on top of the fare. Wishing everything was as easily solved, he does his best to mask the effort it means for him to step outside the vehicle, and keeps his eyes on their destination as he leads them to the frontis. 

 

He almost faints when he turns to ask him about dinner, and doesn’t find him.

 

It’s far, far too cold and close to a winter’s goddamn early sunset for the boy to _do this to him._ It’s the doorman the one who points him in the right direction, and truly, he’s known for weeks Credence moves as if he didn’t belong to this world, more spirit than person, but this is stupid.

 

He doesn’t even think of how much his leg is aching when he crosses the street in long, hurried strides, and they live so close to the Zoo’s back entrance. Did he go in, or will Graves have to go looking for him through the entirety of Central Park? Has this _child_ thought--?

 

He spots him on the southern path right to his left, not that far away. Looking up with a strange expression Graves can’t define on, searching for something.

 

“What date is it?”, he asks, as if he hadn’t just given Graves a taste of fear. As if Graves had needed the reminder of what it felt like. He doesn’t let him reply before he adds, “look.”

 

Graves follows his gesture, upwards. The naked tree top looks almost like spun silver - smooth bark, thin branches, all grey and.

 

_White._

 

It’s a magnolia, Graves realizes so late it almost shames him. The buds are almost too heavy. There’s a couple of them already breaking into open flowers, swaying on a breeze that should’ve, by all means, blown them away.

 

“My eyes don’t work well”, Credence tells him, in these broken, stilted sentences of his.  “But I thought-- Ah.”

 

He shrugs, unsuccessful in his attempt to get the weight of the world off his shoulders. “I’ve always liked these. And the cherry trees. And all of the other ones I don’t know the names of, that… that start blooming before winter ends. I hate the cold.”

 

 _‘Do they feel like hope?’,_ Graves wants to tell him, and maybe this is something they can agree on. A little. It’s not bad to have a reminder, the sun could shine again - If you held out long enough for it at least.

 

Credence sighs and his back, it curves upon itself again as he faces away from the magnolia. It remains that way even as he goes slump on the bench under it, with his hands neatly set on his bony knees.

 

“Forget it. It’s stupid”, he finishes and _no._ Graves waited, again, far too long to talk to him, isn’t it? To step closer, tell him he understands?

 

That he relates?

 

Graves goes to him, and brushes away Credence’s fringe. His hair had grown a little, bowlcut giving way to something softer two months after December. ‘ _Look at me’,_ he wants to say, wants to ask what happened to make him so visibly defeated.

 

As if he’d been prepared for the boy to comply. His chest now _hurts._

 

“I don’t think it’s going to work”, Credence says, just like that. Confessing before Graves has a chance to ask, and then losing his gaze somewhere up, past the top of the trees.

 

There’s not a lot of green left, in Central Park. Winter means snow means dark, bare trunks. Graves’ heard of ice skating in The Lake, but barring that and the profusion of street food carts in the most frequented spots, everything around looks a little harsher once the holidays are over, and there’s no decorations anywhere.

 

Graves breathes deeply, and sits down next to him. Sees the ghost of his word when he sighs, “Credence…”

 

“I don’t think it’s going to work”, Credence repeats. “But if it does… What then?”

 

“You don’t seem to believe me much when I promise things, don’t you?” Graves raises an eyebrow, and stops him before he starts apologizing with a brief gesture. “But I understand.”

 

He dares to tease, “even when it’s frustrating, believe me, I understand.”

 

Amusement tugs at the corner of Credence’s lips, wry and brief. Graves is going to take it as a good sign, no matter how small.

 

“I’m still… Still not convinced, you know. That I should be alive”, he confesses. “But… I think you’re the same. And yet you’ve been trying so hard for me.”

 

The boy had meant it as a comfort, he knows this. It still feels like a blow to the chest, tightening his ribs, but he needs to keep listening. Credence is so seldom this candid.

 

_Don’t bite on reflex, don’t deny things. Don’t run away._

 

_You’re a man._

 

“What I want to say is--”, Credence is trying. Even though Graves is currently fighting the impulse to leave, it shows, and he notices. “I’m grateful. If it’s of any use. I wouldn’t be here without you, I would’ve just…”

 

The boy sighs, hands bunching on the fabric of his pants to show the frustration he doesn’t fully allow to express.

 

Why is the prospect of _never having met_ Credence Barebone so bleak? All things considered, they’ve barely talked. And Graves, he neither does attachments, nor dwelling in _‘maybe’_ s.

 

 _Would haves’_ and _‘maybes’,_ they're all fictions people love to get stuck on - and in them, the die always skew towards your own desires, even in failure. But in the story wherein Graves beat Grindelwald across the pond, even if only for enough time to grant him a clean escape-- 

 

Mercy Lewis, but he _hates_ thinking _‘everything happens for a reason’,_ as if the universe cared for personal stories. Just. He still would’ve abandoned this boy to his own fate, exactly the way he had when he’d banished Tina Goldstein to Wand Permits for doing the right thing.

 

“I’ve wanted to die for the longest time”, Credence finishes, simply. As if he’d been waiting to make it explicit. As if he hadn’t frozen Graves’ blood inside his veins. “Used to pray for it, but it never worked. Not even now.”

 

All of a sudden, Graves realizes, he hadn’t kept his own sorrow from showing through at hearing that. The boy is looking at him, so close and attentive it’s almost touch upon his crow’s feet, on the corner of his twisted mouth.

 

He takes a deep breath, trying to release some tension.

 

“It’s not that bad, isn’t it?”, he acquiesces softly. Tired and sincere, a bitter heart trying to be less so if only because both exhaustion and a melancholic boy are both asking him for it. “This world. Staying alive here.”

 

Credence nods, slumping slightly against him.

 

“Not that bad”, he repeats, a quietly raspy tenor to his baritone.

 

Maybe cheerier declarations on the value of life wouldn’t have been nearly as well met. Graves knows this, because he would’ve hated, hated to be reminded that despite tragedy the show has to go on, that no matter the pain you have to get up and keep fighting, that you have to do things like ‘loving yourself’, and fight nail and tooth for a place in the viper’s nest so its children didn’t eat you for breakfast.

 

This is it. And sometimes, you get to feel happy in between bouts of strife. In theory, as far as he’s concerned, but.

 

“I’m glad you’ve been thinking of this”, he says. “Of staying alive. Gotta admit, I’ve been doing the same lately. Not like I’m any good at it, but…”

 

Graves shrugs, finishes that sentence with a simple, lame “maybe it’s worth to see what happens next.”

 

He isn’t expecting for Credence to smile at him, quietly pleased. Or to feel as understood as he does.

 

“You told me”, Credence reminds him, “you’d show me something new, after all.”

 

Graves huffs, shaking his head. He realizes half a second later the sound means _laughter,_ that brief and wry as it is… it’s left him _grinning._

 

“I’ll do my best”, he says, and reaches to pat Credence’s shoulder, so close to his. “May even bring my own wand.”

 

It seems today is a day for surprises.

 

“I think I’d like to see that”, he hears Credence reply.

 

They stay just like that, sitting side by side in silence and watching the stubborn, sprouting branches of the magnolia tree endure the sunset wind, until he feels the boy shivering. His joints are hurting in the cold, too - knee, shoulder, spine.

 

 _'Tepeo’_ , Graves thinks, and magic is wild energy, channeled by willpower. It doesn’t fight him when he drapes it, gentle and crackling, over the both of them. Credence feels it, and says nothing. He just acknowledges with a small nod, a sideway glance of his bourbon eyes.

 

He’s not expecting the boy to rise first and help him up. He’s not expecting himself to lean on him on the first steps, either.

 

Home awaits.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graves hasn't felt alright in a long time, isn't it.
> 
> \--
> 
> I STILL FEEL LIKE THIS CHAPTER WAS SLOW AS MOLASSES, and then rushed into the ending. But here it was. Here it was, and I hope very dearly y'all were entertained.
> 
> Comments are my life, my soul, and so huge a percent of my motivation to Write This (even if I'm not quick at it), it's not even funny. So please! Throw me those extra kudos. Throw me those comments that have just one word, or ask questions, or even just yell at me if I've kept you up on this fine Friday night. I love you guys ;3;


End file.
